Double Your Pleasure.


Until today I could only carry 1 kayak at a time on top of the CRV. We wanted to bring both Kayaks with us to Jacksonville when we get THE call from Karen. Our thinking is that we can either use our tandem in J’ville or go down to Gainesville and I could use the single and Christy and Christian could use the tandem – or any other variation. I know it is best to carry the kayaks on their sides but I don’t have the rack equipment to do that. It is also quite difficult to safely flip the tandem kayak when it is lifted that high. I can also load and unload the kayaks unassisted when I mount them in the belly-down configuration.

It took me 2 days to get this done – part time each day – but it was nice to have the time to fix things that didn’t work out as expected. The problem with this configuration is the cockpit of the kayak is wide open and facing up. I already found out how much water can accumulate in the tandem kayak in just 1 rain storm. We are talking gallons. So Penny has taken on the task of making cockpit covers for the kayaks.


I currently have the kayaks on the CRV -ready to go- wrapped with stretch-tite plastic wrap reinforced with duct tape to keep water out. If Karen waits another week the Penny-made covers should be ready. Making the covers has also been an adventure. We are using the material from a gas grill cover that we bought more than a year ago at Target for $4.50. We checked out the hardware, fabric and boat stores to see if they sold bungee cord by the yard. Penny ended up going on line and then calling and negotiating a reduced price from a company in California.

So this kayak project is using the combined skill sets of Penny and me. What a team we make!