People in large groups (more than 2) tend to move slow, and decide even slower. It took roughly 3.67 hours to get from our cars to actually in the water. All we had to do was sign a waiver, grab a kayak and get in the water. Oh, and get a life jacket. Why this took so long, I don't know (and of course, I was last in).
But we did finally set off, which may not have been our best plan. Something about kayaking isn't good. Oh yeah, all the work. You'd think it would be all about the sun, cool breeze, floating on the water, etc. But now you're confusing kayaking with fun. Kayaking is actually all about pain. Mostly to the arms, but let's not forget your lower back, sense of direction and general feeling of hope.
Well, my arms fell off after only five minutes. Just fell right off - there they go, floating in the water. Bye, bye now. Well, at least my left arm did. That's because even though the wind came from the left, the waves (such that they were) came from the left and we were only paddling on the left, the boats continued to turn left. Dammit.
Eventually we all made it to a sandbar/reef thing (and for those wondering, no, this also was not a strip club). There was some relaxing and beer drinking here. It had taken roughly half a century to reach this point. Mainly because we went around the world to the left to get there. After some relaxing, most of the group decided to head back. 3 of us were dumb enough to continue on.
Well, let's say two of us anyway. I don't count because I didn't get a choice. As the rental place only had 6 single kayaks, Kristine and I got in a double kayak. Trapped, that's what that was. But I was glad. Not so much glad to be trapped near a woman with a paddle, but in that I didn't have to have one of the single kayaks. Because they were basically Styrofoam tops.
Modern technology, or better living through chemistry, I don't know. Either way, someone figured out how to make a kayak out of a fishing cooler and thus instability and butt discomfort was born. So having the more stable and more comfortable double kayak was better. At least until the peeing incident.
Of course eventually we got lost from Skip. We did end up finding him and finally making our way back. But not without serious trouble. Since we kept having this oversteer problem, I thought perhaps it might be a good idea if we switched places (I, being the fat ass, was in the back). This was a bad, bad plan. Now instead of going from constantly adjusting our paddling and steering, we went straight to paddling in circles (as Skip put it, "I didn't know 'tacking' was part of kayaking.") Nice.
Hooray for shore! I was glad to get off. Not only because I was tired, sore and beat down, but also because that meant no more paddles. I'm actually scared of them. And you would be too if you'd been around the same women I had, not to mention some of those early childhood ping-pong related accidents.
Now why am I hearing, "where's my wallet?"