Wolfgang wrote:

last May, as a matter of fact.

It happened like this........


I bought two boats over the last year. I got a canoe last summer; a
Mohawk Intrepid 17, outfitted with a 3rd seat. *Just* bought a kayak,
a Necky Manitou. Style and size decision was based on the rivers where
I paddle.

The North and South Forks of the Shenandoah River in Virginia are
shallow, meandering, introspective rivers. I can cartop the canoe or
kayak on my VW Beetle and be on either river in 10 minutes. Can't
always find someone to canoe with, so I got the kayak.

The canoe is heavy royalex, weighing about 78 lb. I can get it on the
Beetle by myself, but it's a little bit of a strain. Getting it on and
off my wife's truck by myself is a pain. The kayak is half the weight
of the canoe, so cartopping barely outweighs the thought it takes to
do it.

I plan to rig the kayak for fishing. There're lots of pictures on the
'net showing milk crates and pvc pipe all bungeed and zip-tied
together for this purpose. But, I also plan to play in the river, so I
avoided a sit-on-top kayak. Also, a sit-in style will let me run and
fish the river into the cooler season.

On another topic, there are consumption advisories for fish caught in
many of the rivers near me, and outright bans on some sections. The
nature of paddling allows us to make close and frequent observations
of the ecological health of the waters where we boat. I was hoping to
see the environment become a topic of discussion in this forum.





--
"This president has destroyed the country, the economy,
the relationship with the rest of the world.
He's a monster in the White House. He should resign."

- Hunter S. Thompson, speaking to an antiwar audience in 2003.