Kayak 101

We bought a 12’ kayak about a year ago, well before we left Texas. It rides packed in the garage beside Mark’s Motorcycle. We have always been into lazy rivers and streams and kayaking is something we wanted to try. We never got one of those round “tuit”s, and it has yet to be wet.

On one of our days off last week, we booked a guided kayak trip.  It was awesome.  The trip was on Spring Creek (cool coincidence) and it is actually a spring feed creek that is cold, clear and shallow.  The water at the source springs is a constant 38 degrees, year around. On the main part of the creek, the temps averaged in the mid-40’s. We paddled upstream for about a mile up to the ‘dancing sands’ where you can see the bubbling up of the springs through the bouncing of the sandy bottom. This was a bit of a chore; as the moment you stopped paddling, you quickly slowed and started drifting backwards. This was not a fast moving stream, but it still had a respectable current.

We guided our kayaks over logs lying barely below the surface, around ones above the surface, and we paddled by ducks and geese that seems unbothered by our quiet little boats. The Spring Creek in Oregon is unique in that it contains the rare ‘mare’s egg’ algae. This type of algae only grows in few places in the world; all of which are very cold streams, which have sandy stream beds. We were able to see them like little moss covered river stones on the sandy floor of the stream. When we got to the stream’s source; we had a photo op. We then turn around and as we paddled back with the current; found it was a much easier task.

We totally enjoyed our morning on the creek. While we couldn’t sneak up on the wildlife, we also didn’t seem to partially disturb them. It was totally awesome how shallow we could go in the kayak and how very maneuverable they are. We will definitely look for more quiet places to explore in a kayak. By the way our kayak has still not been wet; we used the ones from the guide service.  That way we could learn and hopefully not tear up our gear. We will be looking for opportunities in the future to get a second kayak and to make our own splash, and hopefully take Nala with us (as we saw a lady and her dog paddling along with us).

Thanks for checking in on our adventures. Leave a comment so we know you were here. We hope you get a chance to have an adventure of your own.