Song of the Paddle – Buying a Boat, Part 2 The Beginning

So, the hype being built up and what we had in our minds the kayaks we wanted, the three of us (myself, Steve, and Peter) started looking around for shops that would carry our chosen kayaks. We all decided to get the Wilderness Systems Tempest 170 without even having had set foot into one. We checked out the local Adventure Guide store, a multi-sport all around outdoor store, but the sales guy there told us that we would have to wait 12 weeks to get one, that we should have preordered one long ago in the winter and that the people at that company take the summer off to go kayaking, so good luck getting three of them for that summer’s paddling season. Gimme a break. So we called around and heard some good things about The Complete Paddler off the QEW in Toronto, a paddling only shop. They happened to have stock of the model we wanted, and two hours later, we walked out of there, each of us having purchased a kayak and all the accessories needed to start. Mine orange, Peter’s mango (orange fading to orange) and Steve’s yellow. I nicknamed them Agent Orange, Agent Mango and Agent Banana. I also picked up the top of the line carbon fiber Ikelos paddle. Go hard or go home. Even though it’s kind of crazy to drop that much coin on a sport I had never even tried before, I knew that I would love it and spend many hours doing it. Thankfully I was right with my choices on all accounts and haven’t looked back.

It sounds a bit cliché but getting into this pastime/sport was a revelation to me, something that has brought some great happiness, excitement and joy to my life and I have spend many hours/days/weekends/weeks enjoying it ever since. It’s something much more than simply the pleasure of linking your strokes, pulling the water and gliding across it. It opens a whole new world of opportunity.

Suddenly any body of water around – reservoir, river, creek and even streams has the potential to be traveled upon for a day trip or longer adventure. Sure, in my area there’s the standard locally well known day paddling routes such as the Grand River, but anything was now fair game. Google Earth, google maps and my GPS are incredible new tools to find put-in and take-out points where previously would require a lot of scouting by car or word of mouth to find. We came up with the term ‘bushyakking’ obviously a take on bushwhacking, going down small creeks, and many times we brought saws to be able navigate through the deadfall across the creek’s path. Exciting adventures around the Ontario countryside and wilderness await. An added bonus was that these adventures would enable us to become intimate with smalltown Ontario and see the local areas in a way that simply driving through towns doesn’t let you do.