New Obsession and Goofy Stories

It's been a very low posting week because my free time has been consumed with scouring craigslist and ebay for used kayaks. We've been looking for a few weeks, but got seriously obsessive when I missed out on one by a few minutes. So a post goes up on craigslist at 10:30 Sunday night, for an Ocean Scupper Pro sit on top kayak for $300
I replied first thing monday morning. The guy was sellling first-come first-served so I slipped out at lunch and put down a deposit (I drive the car, LuRu had the truck). It turns out the seller kept it on his giant catamaran. He tells me he's had 3 or 4 other contacts about it, but it's mine. He also says that he sold his other one to his neighbor 2 boats down. Monday night we take the truck back to the marina to pick up the boat and pass the boat of the guy who bought the other kayak. He's out and sort of recognizes me from earlier, though I look different without my necktie and dress pants. We talk and he bought the kayak to replace one of a different style and he wants to get rid of his original. So, now we're proud owners of 2 almost new sit on top kayaks. One is the same as the one pictured above, but it's almost neon green. The other is a similar color to the one above but is much shorter and a little wider. So we can try both styles out and easily sell one to get another when we decide what we like, though as of now they fit in the truck pretty well.

So, once we get the new boats, I go into research mode about where to try them out. I find that there's a public park that's free to launch kayaks from during the week. Last night was a full moon, and there was supposed to be a full moon kayak tour from this park. We didn't necessarily want to go on the tour, but it just seemed like it must be a good place to go, so we loaded the boats up and headed out around 7pm. We found the boat launch but no one was around. We figured the group left at 6:30 like the advertising said, so no big deal. We launched and paddled through the mangrove trails until we reached the beautiful calm as glass lake. We paddled around the edge of the lake observing birds (Ibis I think) a raccoon, and several jumping fish, and watched the sunset. We never ran into another soul. It was wierd to be in the middle of such a large metropolis and not see anyone. We paddled in and loaded up the truck around 9pm, only to find we'd been locked in the park. Apparently the kayak tour didn't make their quota so the trip was cancelled, so the park closed at 7:30. We had to call the police and wait for a park ranger to let us out. We're pretty new at the nature thing.

Cheers to another great weekend!