Kayak4Ever

My brother Jonathan came for a visit this past week.He got in a kayak for the first time and tried his first wet exit.

Jonathan has always loved water sports…surfing, canoeing, and last year he tried ocean paddling on a sit-on-top kayak. He’s never paddled a whitewater kayak, though. For an intro experience, we headed to a nearby lake so he could learn some strokes and get the feel of handling the boat. He did great! He used Tim’s creek boat without a spray skirt and did a fine job of paddling forward and backward. Jonathan said he thought the boat felt tippy for about the first half hour, but that went away as he relaxed his lower body and got the hang of taking strokes.

Jonathan was always the athletic one in our family. I was the bookworm who stayed inside to read and watch Elvis movies on TV. Now, as a 40-year-old grown up, I was extra happy to get to show off my sport for my big brother. The rolling really surprised him He shook his head like he was amazed and said it was crazy (good crazy) that I know how to do this.

I don’t know if Jonathan will ever want to take a kayak on moving water, but he said he had a good time playing at the lake. It meant a lot to me to get to share kayaking with him.

I had the camera set on “sunset” mode to catch the really cool clouds and moon (upper right corner) behind Jonathan and me. Yes, Jonathan is holding “rabbit ears” over my head!