A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that I was considering an inflatable kayak as a replacement for my hard sided Native Watercraft Manta Ray, and I got a lot of feedback comments from blog readers. Some shared their experiences with inflatable kayaks, and a surprising number said that they too have thought about an inflatable boat, and would be interested to see what I came up with.

After that blog came out, Tim Ryerson from Inflatable Boats 4 Less contacted me and offered to send me one of his Sea Eagle PaddleSki 435 catamaran kayaks to test. I’ve met Tim and his pretty wife Crystal at different RV events over the years, and Tim has told me several times that if I tried an inflatable kayak, I’d be hooked.

Tim said to play with the boat and write an unbiased review for my readers, good, bad, or indifferent. I’m impressed with a businessman who is that confidant in the quality of his products!

Two boxes arrived, a large one that held the boat, and a smaller box that held two paddles, two inflatable seats, a foot pump, and other supplies. The larger of the two boxes weighed about 50 pounds. Terry was able to lift it with no problems.

Following the directions Tim sent us, we unpacked the boat, and used the foot pump to inflate the two fourteen inch tubes. It took us about seven minutes to inflate the boat on our first attempt. Sea Eagle also has an electric pump available as an option, and I think it would be a good investment.

Sea Eagle calls the PaddleSki 435 five boats in one, because it can be paddled as a kayak, or with optional equipment available from Sea Eagle, you can row it, mount an electric trolling motor, a small gas motor, or even a mast and sail! I disagree though – to me it’s actually six boats in one, because it can be either a solo or tandem kayak! Once inflated, the PaddleSki is fourteen feet long, and just over 36 inches wide, with a capacity of 650 pounds. The boat weighs 41 pounds inflated, and is easy to carry.

Yesterday we tested the Paddle Ski out on the Crooked River, here in central Florida, with our friends Denny and Cindy Henderson. The river is aptly named, because it has more twists and turns than a politician’s pedigree, and connects several lakes in what is known as the Clermont Chain of Lakes.

We put in at the boat ramp at Palatlakaha River Park, and the first thing I noticed was that the PaddleSki is so stable that getting on and off is much easier than in my regular sit on top kayak. I’m an incredibly clumsy guy on my best days, and I don’t have many good days. More than once I’ve fallen into or out of my kayak when launching or coming in, and my buddy Ron Speidel swears he’ll never go anywhere near me on a body of water again until I get launched, because last summer when we paddled together, he almost fell out of his kayak laughing at me! Not so with the PaddleSki. I’m not sure that I could turn this boat over if I tried!

As soon as I paddled away from the boat launch, my first impression was “Man, I love this boat!” I’ve been on the water in everything from rowboats and canoes, to several styles of kayaks, and I have never been in anything that feels so stable and comfortable. No matter how much I wiggled and moved around, the PaddleSki stayed solidly planted on the water.

We paddled about 1/4 mile downriver to Lake Louisa, and then out onto the lake a short distance. There was no wind and the lake’s surface was as smooth as glass, and I became more impressed with the PaddleSki with every foot we paddled. This is absolutely my new favorite boat! It moves quickly across the water, it’s easy to paddle, and the skegs, one mounted on the bottom of each pontoon, make the boat track extremely well. Much better than any of the three hard shell kayaks I’ve owned.

However, I just as quickly became aware that the inflatable seat that came with the boat was just not going to work for me. I felt like I was leaning backward, and before long my back was killing me. This is more a factor of my weight and my very bad back than any design flaw in the PaddleSki seats.  I’ve experienced the same thing with several different kayak seats. I doubt that most paddlers would have any problem with the inflatable seats that came with the Sea Eagle.

The most comfortable kayak seat I have ever had was the one on my first boat, an Ocean Kayak Prowler, and I told Terry that I think one would solve the problem I had with the inflatable seat. Of course, losing 75 pounds and not having a trashed back to start with probably would help too! 

We paddled back upriver to the boat launch, and we moved Cindy’s kayak seat, with four mounting points, to the PaddleSki, and I tried it again. It was a major improvement, and later on when I called Tim from  Inflatable Boats 4 Less to give him my first impressions of the boat, he offered to send me one of Sea Eagles four point high back kayak seats to try. I think it will be a major improvement, and I appreciate the fact that Tim and Crystal want their customers to be satisfied, and will work to make that happen.

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Denny took the PaddleSki for a short test ride, and came back to the launch ramp very impressed with the way it handled, then Miss Terry took it out on the river. You can see by the smile on her face that she was impressed! I asked Terry what she thought of the boat, and she said it’s very smooth, it tracks very well, it’s extremely responsive, and well balanced. If you can’t tell by now, in my opinion, the PaddleSki 435 is a keeper!

Unfortunately, because of the seat issue, I had to deflate the PaddleSki (which took two minutes) and get out my Manta Ray for the rest of the day’s paddling. What a difference in weight just carrying it to the water! The Manta Ray weighs 65 pounds, over half again as much as the PaddleSki.

Back on the water, I was immediately aware of the difference in stability between the two boats. The Manta Ray is an excellent kayak, and I am comfortable in it, but it is definitely much more “tippy” than the PaddleSki. Just wiggling or leaning a bit side to side will make the Manta Ray bounce all over the place.

We paddled upriver through some beautiful scenery to another big lake and out onto it’s surface, Denny stopping to cast for bass along the way.

Once we were on the big lake, I got a real scare when a couple of guys in a bass boat went speeding past, throwing up a rooster tail of water behind them, and creating a strong wake. The safe way to take a wave in a kayak is head on, and the boat will ride up over the top and back down. But this happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to turn, and three fast waves hit me broadside, bouncing me all over the place.

Terry was sitting beside me when the waves hit, the bow of her boat against the side of mine in a T formation, on the lee side of the waves. If I hadn’t been able to grab onto her bow to steady myself, I think I may well have gone into the water. That was the first time I’ve been really scared in a kayak! Most fishermen have good manners and are courteous to other watercraft, but there are always a few jerks out there.

My friend Denny lives and breathes fishing, and had been casting into dark pools at the base of cedar stumps, and under docks, as we paddled by, hoping to hook something. As we headed back downriver toward the boat launch, Denny’s rod tip suddenly dipped sharply, and he had a fish on the line. It gave him a pretty good fight, but he brought a nice one pound largemouth bass to his boat, then let it go after posing for a picture for Miss Terry.

We spent close to three hours on the water, and had a wonderful time. But we sure were tired by the time we got back to the launch. Carrying our heavy boats back up to the van was a chore. I can’t wait until the new seat comes for the PaddleSki, so I can get it back out onto the water!

Thought For The Day – I may not have gone where I intended to go, but  I have ended up where I needed to be.

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In spite of noisy trucks coming and going, we slept soundly at the Georgia Welcome Center, and felt refreshed when we woke up yesterday morning. Before we hit the road, we turned on our Onan Quiet Diesel generator, and while Terry brewed herself a pot of coffee, I had a bowl of cereal, checked e-mail, fixed a typo in the blog, and logged onto Dennis Hill’s and Greg White’s blogs, to see if  either had updated them since the day before. Dennis hadn’t, but Greg did, so I was batting 50% for the day. For me, that’s darned good!

We pulled out of the Welcome Center just after 9 a.m. and traveled south on Interstate 95. The highway crossed over several rivers, some as wide as small lakes, and a lot of marshland. None of the bridges were high, most were the same level as the road, so I didn’t snivel even once!

Last year when we took this route, we traveled through road construction for several miles north of Brunswick, and it doesn’t appear that they have gotten much accomplished, because we again ran into construction in the same stretch of highway.

Traffic was heavier than the day before, and by the time we crossed into Florida, it was getting really busy, and stayed busy all the way to our destination.

We took the I-295 loop around the east side of Jacksonville, and I still didn’t snivel, even when we crossed this bridge over the wide St. Johns River, a major waterway in this part of the world. Maybe the bridge didn’t bother me because it was four lanes wide, and we were in the third lane, and maybe because it wasn’t awfully high except in one place.  The loop adds a few miles to the trip, but it’s a lot easier than dealing with all of the traffic in Jacksonville.

South of Saint Augustine, we pulled into the Flying J to get fuel, and our Rewards card wouldn’t work. This sign on the pump said the problem was due to “technology changes.”

Like the Pilot the day before, the pump would only let me put $75 worth of fuel in before it cut me off, and when we tried to pay for more, the message on the screen said to see the cashier. Terry went inside, and they charged $200 to our credit card. We didn’t need $200 worth, so now they have to charge the difference back to our card. The clerk did give Terry a discount off the pump price. This is getting to be a real pain. I wonder how many forms of ID they would require if I just paid cash?

Now here is an example of the kind of RVer that makes us all look bad. 12:30 in the afternoon at Flying J, and he has his jacks down, awning out, and satellite dish up. And he wasn’t even in one of the designated RV parking spaces! Why do people do that? When it comes to losing the courtesy parking so many companies offer, we are our own worst enemy.

Back on the road, we arrived at The Great Outdoors in Titusville, Florida a little after 2 p.m., and got settled into the lot our friends Peter and Connie Bradish own. Soon after we arrived, Connie came by to make sure that we had arrived safely. Thanks for your hospitality, dear friend.

It was pretty hot, and by the time I had the RV hooked up and Terry had things unpacked inside, we were both tired and hungry. We ran into town and had an early dinner at Sonny’s Barbecue, a regional favorite of ours, and then it was back to the motorhome to veg out the rest of the afternoon and evening. We’ll be here a week or so, and I hope to be able to get some pictures of the space shuttle launch, which has now been delayed until Tuesday.

While I was writing this blog post, I got an e-mail from Dish Network that they have settled their pissing match with Fox, and that our FX and National Geographic channels have been restored. Yay, I can watch Sons of Anarchy again! Of course, then I got a message from a fulltiming friend who uses DirecTV, who said the company told him his monthly fee for distant networks is going up.

Thought For The Day – When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.

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For some reason, neither Terry or I sleep well the night before we hit the road for someplace new. I’m not sure why that is, but Wednesday night we tossed and turned most of the night, and only got four or five hours sleep.

We were up early, and while I answered a bunch of e-mails, Terry made final preparations inside the motorhome for traveling. Then I disconnected the campground utilities, we said goodbye to some folks who came by to see us off, we hooked the van to the Blue Ox tow bar, and pulled out of Raccoon Valley about 9:45.

We took Interstate 75 south to Interstate 640, then followed that east to Interstate 40, making good time all the way, with light traffic around us. We followed Interstate 40 as it turned south into North Carolina, and were treated to some of the prettiest fall colors we could ever remember seeing. Here are some pictures Terry took along the way.

We had never been through this part of North Carolina, but we both said we’ll have to come back some time and do some exploring. It’s absolutely beautiful!

The road had a few 6 and 7 percent downgrades, and a lot of curves. In some places the truck speed was only 50 miles per hour, which usually means that the truckers blow through at 70, but not here.

And what’s a trip without road construction, right? In several places the highway was down to one lane, but even though there was a lot of traffic, we didn’t have any delays.

We even went through two tunnels! I don’t mind tunnels if the road lanes are wide and the traffic is not too heavy. These were no problem.

In Asheville, we picked up Interstate 26 and followed it into South Carolina. We stopped at a Pilot for fuel, and I was reminded that Pilot is my least favorite truck stop. I think the employees must all hate their jobs, because they are always surly and never smile. And what’s with having to pre-pay a selected amount? I don’t know how much fuel I’ll need, but they won’t just turn the pump on, even with Terry standing there with her credit card. We bought $200 worth of diesel, and could have put in another $25 or so, but it wasn’t worth holding up other drivers while Terry stood in line to repeat the process all over again. I wonder how much money they lose every day because other drivers feel the same as I do? I could understand if they were worried about cars driving off without paying, but eighteen wheelers and RVs are not exactly fast  “getaway” vehicles.

We had a delay at Pilot because a trucker who was either very new and/or very dumb, had swung too wide when he pulled up to a pump, and was about to hit the concrete island. So we had to wait with several trucks while he carefully backed up, then tried to pull up to a different fuel island. This time he didn’t swing far enough, and wound up with the front end of his truck wedged kind of sideways in the island, but his trailer at about a 45 degree angle to it, blocking two fuel islands.

Than he just sat there contemplating his navel or wondering why he gave up his glamorous career in the fast food industry, until the trucker in front of us finally got fed up and yelled at him to get his attention, then  guided him as he backed out again. Actually, it took two guides to get him out without tearing up the fuel island. On his third attempt he managed to get into the island straight, but he kept right on going and didn’t stop. I think he feared the wrath of several of his fellow drivers who had to sit there blocking the road while he figured out which pedal was the brake and which was the clutch. Or, maybe he never did figure out which was which and he couldn’t stop. Who knows?

Back on the road, we passed Columbia, where I spent some time at Fort Jackson as a young soldier, and then out into the countryside again. We crossed the state and hooked up with Interstate 95, turned south, and just continued to put miles behind us. It was a nice day, the driving was easy, and before we knew it we were crossing the state line into Georgia.

We pulled into the State Welcome Center about 5:30 p.m., with 414 miles behind us this driving day. We parked overnight here last year when we came through, and I went inside to see if it was still okay. I think the same lady was behind the desk this year, and she told me the same thing as before – camping overnight is not allowed. But “resting” is just fine, and the police who regularly patrol the Welcome Center encourage RVers to “rest” comfortably in their beds until they are refreshed and ready to drive again.  

Yes, it was a lot of miles, and no, I’m not going to change my ways. When we’re in “get there” mode, this is what we do. I like driving my motorhome, and we don’t see any reason to stop early and sit around waiting until we’re tired enough to go to bed, if we’re just going to make a quick overnight stop.

Today we’ll have an easy run of about 275 miles, and we should be in Titusville by mid-afternoon. We’re looking forward to seeing our friends Peter and Connie Bradish, Tim and Ann Moran, and Walter and Amy Cannon, who all live in the area.

Thought For The Day – It’s better to have loved and lost, than to have lived with that sick, twisted psycho one more day!

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With the storms gone, we have sunshine and blue sky, and it’s time to hit the road. We are leaving the Escapees Raccoon Valley campground today and heading for Florida. We’ve enjoyed our time here, but we have a lot we want to do in the Sunshine State, and we’re eager to get there.

We have decided to take Interstate 40 through North Carolina, and then pick up Interstate 26 across South Carolina. This will be a pretty fast trip, so we probably won’t do any sightseeing along the way. We want to be in Titusville by the weekend.

We’ll be bouncing all around Florida, from Titusville to the Thousand Trails in Clermont, and down to Key West. We also want to spend some time at the Escapees RV park in Bushnell, and I have some family members I want to visit in the St. Petersburg area We don’t have to be in Arizona until mid-February, so we’re just playing it by ear for the next couple of months.   

It’s been over a year since we’ve had our kayaks in the water, which is way too long, so we definitely want to get some paddling done. I also really want to try kayak fishing. Two years ago we paddled with fulltime RVers Dennis and Cindy Henderson off of Little Duck Key, at the south end of the Seven Mile Bridge, and watched Dennis catching fish from his kayak, and I was hooked.

Lately I have been seriously thinking about going to an inflatable kayak. We currently have two Native Watercraft Manta Ray 12 foot rotomolds, and we like them a lot. They are very stable, they track well, and they’re comfortable. You can see from the smile on Miss Terry’s face how much she likes her kayak.

However, I have a very bad back, which my doctor says will only continue to deteriorate, over time. We carry the boats inside our van, on a platform built over the wheel wells, and they weigh 64 pounds each. Lifting them up is going to get harder over time. Hence the thoughts about inflatables. I’d be interested in any feedback from those of you who have an inflatable kayak, about your particular boats, the pros and cons.

On a completely different topic, Walter Cannon from the Recreational Vehicle Safety Education Foundation (RVSEF), has set the dates for RVSEF’s 2011 RV Lifestyle, Education & Safety Conference. It will be held May 6-8 in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The RVSEF program, designed to be more like a college course than an RV rally, provides a unique educational opportunity for new and veteran RVers to learn about RVs and the RV lifestyle from expert instructors. For more information, call (321) 453-7673, or visit the RVSEF website at www.rvsafety.com and click on the Conference button at the top of the page.

We all can learn new things, and even an old warhorse like myself can pick up a valuable idea from relative newcomers to the lifestyle every so often. My friend George Stoltz had a post on his George & Sandy’s Great Adventure blog yesterday about how he saved $295 on a quick and easy RV repair. Check it out, and you may be able to save yourself some money too, if you run into the same problem.

I don’t know where we’ll end up tonight, but it will be somewhere in the Carolinas. We’ll drive until we decide to stop, wherever that happens to be.

Thought For The Day – When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.

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When you are my size, which is called Dwarf Portly by the fashion industry, you don’t go skinny dipping. But yesterday I did go chunky dunking!

My buddy Ron Speidel declared that it was a good day for kayaking, so we headed for Bristol, a small community a few miles from Elkhart Campground, and launched our boats in the St. Joseph River from the Public Access Site at Hermance Park.

I quickly discovered that the Wilderness Tarpon kayak I had just acquired did not fit me nearly as well as the same model boat I paddled last winter in Texas. They changed the seat in the newer models, and the new seat was miserable for me. The seat would not stay upright, and I found myself paddling from a reclining position that was impossible to deal with. When we finally managed to get the seat adjusted and fixed into position, the frame was digging into my spine.

I paddled over to the bank and got out of the boat to try and adjust the seat again, and when I climbed out, I did not notice several submerged logs which were covered in moss and very slippery. As soon as my foot landed on one of the logs, I found myself on my butt in about two feet of river water, with the kayak turned over next to me!

Everybody got a laugh out of that, and while Miss Terry and Brenda wisely stayed out in the middle of the river away from the danger zone, I pulled the boat back over onto its bottom. Ron paddled over to hold my boat stable while I worked on the seat and then tried to climb on board.

Can you believe that I slipped a second time, and capsized the boat again? Miss Terry grabbed her camera to record the incident for posterity (or to have something to show my life insurance company), but by then I was back on my feet, nothing injured except for my dignity.

Ron, to his credit, never gave me any grief. He just sat there with that same look on his face my dad used to get when my weird cousin came to visit.

I finally got back into the boat and we resumed our paddle. Ron and Terry quickly pulled ahead of Brenda and I, and Terry stopped to take a quick photo of us as we brought up the rear.

She also spotted these big turtles sunning on a log in the river and took their picture before they slipped into the water. Do you think maybe they wanted to get out of the way before I fell out again, and landed on one of them?

Paddling upriver against the current was hard work, but floating back down to the park with the current carrying us along was very nice. I told Brenda it was like having cruise control.

Now, after reading this, you may think that kayaks are unstable. They are not. I am unstable! Anyone who knows me will tell you that. Once when I was overseas I was walking point on a patrol on a steep mountain trail, and my captain, knowing how clumsy I am, said “I sure hope he doesn’t stumble on a trip wire (to a mine).” One of my buddies replied “Hell, sir, let’s just be happy if he doesn’t fall off the damn mountain!”

With our paddling done for the day, we returned to Fluid Fun, where I explained my problems with the new boat. They were very accommodating and let me return it for a Native Watercraft Manta Ray, the same model kayak Miss Terry has, except in the Angler edition. I have paddled Terry’s boat a couple of times, and found it comfortable. She has loved it since she got it, and hopefully I’ll stay inside this one!

Thought For The Day – Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get

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