First kayak adventure of the season

So the happy day arrived; Mr. Ken and I were all set to go kayaking. In deference to my shoulder injury and to us getting older in general, Mr. Ken bought a nifty new kayak rack system. With this new system, you only have to lift the kayak to about hip height, place it on the rack and then use the levers to rise up the kayak to the roof tip. Talk about a shoulder saver!

These new racks look quite innocuous, don’t they?

In the old days, it took us about 15 minutes to load the kayaks. Knowing this system was slightly more complicated, we allowed an extra 15 minutes. Yep, sounds good in theory, but 90 minutes later we are still trying to figure out how to tie the kayaks down. The stupid straps kept slipping out from the hooks. Mr. Ken is quite the spatial afficionado, but even he couldn’t figure out how to do it. We kept trying to imitate the picture, but to no avail.

Our dear neighbor, J, drove by and waved. An hour later he came home and waved again, this time with quite the puzzled expression on his face since Mr. Ken and I were standing in the exact same place we were when he first drove by. For the record, J is the strong guy who helped Mr. Ken bring the kayaks up from our basement. I used to do this, but my shoulders are now telling me otherwise.

Finally, finally, finally, we were able to tie down the kayaks. Except we had to use our old straps and just tie the kayaks down any way we could. Luckily we weren’t driving far for the kayak trip.

It was exhausting but so worth it. Our first paddle was glorious. All the cares of the world just slip away when we are out on the water. We can’t wait to get out again.

We decided we need more practice with tying the kayaks before we do our next trip.