After a couple days of insanity running around for my move up to Burlington I took today and its beautiful weather as a sign and decided to put the Phoenix back in the water at Lake Paran. It was quiet when I first got there.
This is the dam at the end of Lake Paran. After all the rain it was running strong. It is a small lake and has a serious problem with this invasive seaweed. Almost half is filled almost to the surface with the stuff and I had to be careful not to catch my paddles on it.
The launch is really nice and I did a couple trips out and around. I am getting more comfortable with the balance of the boat and when I would get close to shore I would try my harder paddle strokes and turns while tilting the hull. Once I relaxed and settled it was quite nice and dragonflies kept landing on the bow. I also saw a turtle surface for air, which was a nice surprise.
Believe it or not this was on purpose. Knowing how tippy this is I wanted to do some more tests with worst case scenarios. I flipped and filled it as much as I could and tried wet reentry to see if I could paddle it filled with water. It was slow and ponderous but still functional. And with it filled with water and therefor lower, the kayak was notably more stable. I tried a partial flip with me in it to see what it would be like getting out of it inverted. I have my hands on ground in case I needed it and I discovered that it was incredibly awkward experience. I am going to practice more when I have someone there to flip it back up in case I get stuck. Over all I had a great time and all my clothing is hanging all over the room drying.
After a couple days of insanity running around for my move up to Burlington I took today and its beautiful weather as a sign and decided to put the Phoenix back in the water at Lake Paran. It was quiet when I first got there.
This is the dam at the end of Lake Paran. After all the rain it was running strong. It is a small lake and has a serious problem with this invasive seaweed. Almost half is filled almost to the surface with the stuff and I had to be careful not to catch my paddles on it.
The launch is really nice and I did a couple trips out and around. I am getting more comfortable with the balance of the boat and when I would get close to shore I would try my harder paddle strokes and turns while tilting the hull. Once I relaxed and settled it was quite nice and dragonflies kept landing on the bow. I also saw a turtle surface for air, which was a nice surprise. 
Believe it or not this was on purpose. Knowing how tippy this is I wanted to do some more tests with worst case scenarios. I flipped and filled it as much as I could and tried wet reentry to see if I could paddle it filled with water. It was slow and ponderous but still functional. And with it filled with water and therefor lower, the kayak was notably more stable. I tried a partial flip with me in it to see what it would be like getting out of it inverted. I have my hands on ground in case I needed it and I discovered that it was incredibly awkward experience. I am going to practice more when I have someone there to flip it back up in case I get stuck. Over all I had a great time and all my clothing is hanging all over the room drying.
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