I think I may have started a trend in the Higgins clan, since everyone in the family seems to be getting kayaks. My brother Ralph bought a Frenzy kayak last year. My sister Patty has a friend who has a lot of experience surfing kayaks. So when she saw a pair of sit-on-top kayaks for sale used, she bought them. My sister Margie recently bought a double sit-on-top kayak for her family. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, we decided to get together and do a family paddle. The ocean was a little rough to consider an open ocean or surf practice paddle, so we just launched into the Russian River in front of Ralph’s house.
I insisted that we paddle downstream because the banks of the river in that direction are less developed and thus more interesting. The river had a noticeable current from recent rains, but there was a wind blowing upstream to help us home later. Margie and Scott were in their double kayak with their youngest child, Sarah, sitting between them. Their oldest, Michael, paddled Ralph’s Frenzy kayak but had to get towed from time-to-time when he got tired. Patty was in one of her Aquatera sit-on-tops, but her friend Gene was in a sit-inside plastic kayak that he had just bought used.
We were not the only crazy people out on the river on a cold windy overcast day. A Folbot fabric kayak went by with two people in it as we were getting ready to launch. Later a large fiberglass double sit- inside kayak passed us. The couple in this boat were wearing matching hooded raincoats which made them look like a pair of Eskimos, despite the orange day-glo stripes on the arms and hoods. This couple paddled close to a pod of six harbor seals hauled out of the water and scared the seals into the river. We had managed to go far enough around the seals earlier without disturbing them and were disappointed that someone else drove them into the water.
We paddled down the river past the Willow Creek Campground and around the corner to a rocky cliff that I always find attractive. At this point Margie and Scott and their brood turned back. Patty wanted to continue, especially when I told her that there was a rock in the middle of the river called "Patty’s Rock" around the next corner past Bridgehaven. But after paddling a few more kilometers into the wind, we decided to turn back without traveling as far as Bridgehaven.
