Paddling With the Dolphins


Penny and I used our tandem kayak for the first time in over a year this morning. I took a break from the yard work and we took advantage of a beautiful morning to try our skills at tandem paddling and see if our marriage would survive it.


We loaded the kayak on the CRV and were off by 7AM. We have to work some on our loading/unloading procedure. The kayak is unwieldy and tends to go where it wants to. We went in the water at what we call the little beach, about 2 miles or so from where we live. When we arrived at the beach there was a man with a 1-man skull that he had just launched doing his morning row.

As we pushed off from shore we found that 3 dolphin had just entered the bayou and were working their way up toward Camp Pinchot. We paddled out and tried to keep up with them all the way to the end of the bayou.

At one point we had 2 dolphin on one side of us and another behind us. We could hear them breathing and also heard some of that alien sounding dolphin-speak. I told Penny that if we rowed real fast they might ride our bow-wake. She didn’t like the idea.

It was a beautiful morning as you can see by the pictures. I brought along the little Polaroid digital camera that we got for free from Circuit City at Christmas time. I didn’t get any good shot of the dolphin. They seemed to know when I was paddling or had the camera turned off. They also liked to come up right where Penny blocked my view. It’s as if they were taunting me. We paddled some, rested some and paddled some more. We were in the water about an hour and followed the dolphin up and back. Interestingly my left shoulder tired faster than my right. The shoulders worked OK though. By the end of the hour we were both ready to go home and take a warm bath. It was a fun morning.

Now that I know my shoulders are good I’m looking forward to some sessions in my “new” kayak. Maybe I’ll experience some kayak moments of Zen like daughter Karen.