I was on a business trip to Winston Salem in North Carolina and took my folding kayak along with me. I was supposed to spend a few days of this trip in Miami Beach and hoped to paddle a kayak in the Atlantic ocean. That part of the trip didn’t work out (my flight to Miami was delayed and I didn’t have the expected extra day to play). I normally don’t carry much luggage with me on business trips, and a single small suitcase under the seat in front of me can hold enough supplies for a week or two. The Feathercraft K-Light kayak fits in a medium sized suitcase-shaped bag and I checked it as luggage on the off chance that I would get to use it. While I was in North Carolina I got that chance to try my portable boat out in a fresh water lake.
My “boss” Jeff Surgnier took his son Jason bass fishing on Lake Belews on Saturday and I came along for the ride. They got their power boat off the ramp and left me assembling my boat on the grass near the water. Feathercraft says that it takes 30 minutes to assemble this boat and some people don’t believe this is really possible. It took me 49 minutes the first time, and this time it probably took that long again because of several false starts. Assembling it at Willow Creek once I got it together in a record 20 minutes!
The bass fishing boats all turned right and headed for the open lake, so I turned left and went up a quiet creek looking for wildlife. The shoreline was often private property with lawns running down to the water. But other places were heavily wooded or had cattle standing on shore watching me go by with incredulous eyes. The creek got more and more shallow until I could feel the bottom occasionally through the fabric skin of the boat. When my boat was compressing water close to the bottom, the mud would start releasing bubbles of gas. In one place I heard a louder and louder hissing noise as I paddled and looked back to see a long path of boiling water behind me where my boat had disturbed the bottom.
Just like the Russian River back home I saw an occasional green heron and a few turtles in the water. I followed the creek deep under trees trying to see how far upstream I could go. The creek got so narrow and shallow that it reminded me of the creek behind my mom’s house where I constructed and paddled my first skin boat decades ago. I passed one family having a gathering on the shore of their creek. I shouted out hello as I approached but still scared one of their kids swimming in the water when she looked up and saw a 12 foot boat going past. The water was so shallow there that two large dogs followed me for a while by just walking after me in the middle of the creek.
Before I actually ran out of water to paddle in I ran out of time and had to turn back to meet Jeff at the dock. He wasn’t there so I paddled farther down the creek until it looked more lake-like. I tried to catch rides in the wakes of the power boats going back and forth. One of those power boats turned out to be Jeff’s and he stopped to offer me some lunch. We returned to the dock where I tried to demonstrate a kayak roll for my hosts but failed. As I had recently discovered on the Russian River I cannot roll this boat yet. The rib piece in the front of the cockpit digs painfully into my knee and I cannot hold onto the boat. I still have not found the time to make something to solve this problem.
While attempting my roll, I left my camera on the shore under some gear, and the gear rolled off and exposed the camera to the hot sunlight. When I noticed this I grabbed the camera, walked a few meters out into the water and held the camera just under the surface for a minute. Jeff and Jason stood speechless with their jaws dropping before I reassured them that it was a waterproof camera.