For my birthday, Scott bought me a new kayak. He did some research on it and found out it was supposed to be super stable and very comfortable. After getting it, he decided he would like to try it (midlife crisis?!) after adamantly saying no for years. We took the kayak along with one of our old ones to the Davis Canal on Oak Island. It’s a calm waterway with easy access. It was a gorgeous but hot day. Scott started out on the old kayak to let me enjoy the new one and he didn’t like it very much. After going a little ways down, we turned around and went back to the put in. When we got there, we got out and Scott got back in on the new one. He liked it. He said he felt very stable, safe, and a lot ,ore comfortable.

After this trip. He said he would like to get another kayak like this one. To make sure it wasn’t a fluke and to test some waters with some more movement, we went down to the waterfront. We put the kayak in on the public access and let him see how he felt with the wake of big boats and the stronger current of the river/intracoastal. He said he felt stable and safe.

So…we got a tandem kayak. We loaded it up on the Element and hoped on the ferry to head to Carolina beach. We packed a lunch and paddled over to Shark Tooth Island and some of the other islands close by. Scott has always wanted to find a shark tooth so I was hoping he would. Sadly, he did not. I did! The river was like glass on this day. It was a perfect day. We paddled all around and even got up close and personal with the pelican posse. It is a little weird not having full control of where the kayak goes and will take some practice but it was a lot of fun.

We enjoyed it so much, that the next day we went kayaking again. This time we put in at the Brunswick Nature Park. It was another beautiful day! We saw lots of little baby alligators (even though Scott didn’t want me to tell him when I saw them). There were lots of birds and even Osprey nests. We kayaked 3 miles before we decided to turn around. It didn’t take us quite as long as we thought it would so we were fight the outgoing tide when we turned around. It was so difficult to paddle against the current that we decided to hold on to the dock at the Gator Hole for about an hour and have our lunch. Once the tide switched, we began the paddle back and it was enjoyable. We now have the timing figured out a little better for future visits. We have also figured out that kayaking 2 days in a row is a lot on the arm muscles and the second day is a little harder.

After getting home from our paddle at Brunswick Nature Park, we showered, napped, and headed to Provision for dinner and then American Fish to enjoy some time with friends and some live music.

Stay tuned for our future kayaking adventures! There are so many places relatively close by that we can explore now.