End of a Paddling Era

Yesterday, DW and I said so long to an era.

For five seasons, our kayaks were a means of escape. During the pandemic, it was a way to enjoy the outdoors whist maintaining social distancing. Later, it was a way to get out of the city and into nature.

And though DW and I haven't used our old kayaks since we replaced them with longer boats, our old kayaks had a special place in our hearts.

My red Delta 12.10 kayak sold two weeks ago, after having been on the market for couple a of weeks. I had lots of views but no offers for more than a week, and then a couple of curious people who were looking to acquire the boat for less than it was worth reached out, but we couldn't come to an agreement. But finally, someone with a love of kayaks, who already had a Delta 12.10 for his wife, made a reasonable offer.

Paddling the Long Sault.

I couldn't help but get a bit choked up as I saw my kayak drive away on somebody else's car.

I modified my Kijiji ad but shortly after deleted it, opting to make a new ad for DW's kayak. Hers was a saffron-yellow Delta 12S and though it was 10 inches shorter than mine, it had fewer scratches on the hull.

For two weeks, there wasn't a single nibble on the ad and I even considered dropping the price, though I knew that we were asking a reasonable amount. Deltas are great crafts that hold their value.

Two nights ago, someone made an offer that was $200 less than our asking price. I checked out his profile and learned that he was selling a 14-foot Necky kayak. And through our chat, I learned that he was retired, making me guess that he was at least my age.

A Necky 14' kayak weighs 51 pounds; DW's Delta 12S: 38 pounds.

I surmised that he was looking for something that was lighter, that he was a serious kayaker who wanted to downsize. I offered to take $100 off the price of DW's kayak and he accepted. The next morning (yesterday), he picked it up.

I was right in thinking that this buyer was looking for a lighter kayak. He was about five or so years older than me and he agreed that his Necky was now too heavy to lift on his roof rack by himself. When he saw me lift the Delta, one-handed, he was convinced he was making the right purchase.

Even though it wasn't my kayak, I felt a small sense of loss when the man drove away with DW's boat on his car. We had so many great memories with those kayaks and I'm glad that I captured some of those memories in my YouTube videos.

Making memories on the Mississippi River.

We've been out together in our new Delta 14 kayaks seven times and I've shared all but one outing on my YouTube channel (I also have one video where I paddled alone). I'm confident that we'll have many great memories over the next few years.

It's the end of one paddling era. We've only just begun the next era.

Leisure For Sale

The time has finally come.

After five seasons of excellent use, DW and I are finally selling our old kayaks.

My Delta 12.10. I'm going to miss it.

As of tomorrow, I'll be posting them on Kijiji. DW, who still has a Facebook account, will likely add them to the market site.

It took several hours of scrubbing out the nicks and scrapes of all the rivers and lakes we've paddled on to get my boat sale-worthy. There were marks that I thought were permanent but they've cleaned up quite nicely.

When DW and I picked up our new kayaks, in April, we talked to the folks at Frontenac Outfitters about wanting to sell our old ones, and asked about how much we should be seeking. The owner said that Delta kayaks hold their value, and that he, himself, couldn't discount his demo models by more than $200.

I described the shape ours were in: the bottom hulls have a few scratches from general wear and tear, but are still solid. They've never been abused. The stickers on the sides of the deck, near the cockpit, have been scraped up from the straps that we use to secure the kayaks on our roof rack. They don't affect the kayak at all but might not look great.

We bought new stickers, which we'd be willing to throw in if someone doesn't like the look of the old ones, but we won't replace them ourselves. It's nothing a hot hairdryer won't be able to lift off but it's time-consuming.

The owner of Frontenac Outfitters gave us a maximum asking price and a minimum price that we should accept. Delta kayaks are a hot commodity and sell out quickly, he added.

I loved my Delta 12.10. It's solid, stable, and manoeuvrable. Its design helps keep it in a straight line and it's perfect for weekend camping and day excursions. Though not designed for rapids, it could easily handle class 1 or possibly class 2 water conditions.

There's ample storage in the bow and stern, and an easy-to-access day pod holds snacks, keys, water bottles, and whatever you need to quickly get to. I used mine for light snacks, to hold spare batteries for my action camera (though the pod has an air-tight lid, I kept the batteries in a secondary, waterproof container), keys, and more.

DW's kayak is in equally good shape. It's 10 inches shorter than mine (Delta 12S), which makes it even more manoeuvrable. My kayak weighs 41 pounds; hers, 38.

We're hoping to sell the kayaks together and are more likely to cut a deal on them as a set. We want $1200 each but can negotiate if someone wants them both. The price includes the kayaks only: we're not selling any other accessories.

We still need those.

You'd also be saving on sales tax, so $1200 is a savings of more than $600. And these Canadian-made kayaks are so worth it.

How about you? Interested? Here's the Kijiji link to the listing.

Serious inquiries, only.

Feeling Blue over My Kayak

I haven't yet clicked with my new kayak. And I think it's the colour that's to blame.

I mean, paddling in my Delta 14 is a dream: it's fast, it's stable, and when I've used the rudder, it moves in a perfectly straight line.

I love paddling in it.

When DW and I decided to upgrade our kayaks, it didn't take us much convincing to go with the 14-foot Deltas. We loved our old Deltas and knew that if we wanted to explore larger waterways, we needed the extra length and the rudders. It was a no-brainer to stick with the brand that we knew and loved.

The only real consideration, after taking a test paddle at Frontenac Outfitters, was to decide on a colour. I really liked the lime green, but so did DW. I didn't want to have the same colour of kayak that I had before, even though I loved the red, and the green was the next colour that appealed to me.

Delta had come out with a new colour, a rich orange, but I felt that it looked too similar to red, and I wanted the new kayak to stand out, especially in our videos. In retrospect, I might have been happier with the orange.

I mean, I liked the Azure colour that Delta had, but I feel that I settled for this colour, rather than saying, "Yeah, I want that colour for my kayak."

When we picked up our kayaks, at the end of April, and saw them unwrapped, I liked the blue. We were looking at our new crafts in a heavily overcast, rainy light, and the blue really punched. Maybe I would be alright with this new colour, I told myself.

On our first paddle, I was overwhelmed by how well the Delta 14 performed, how comfortable I was with it. It felt strange looking down the bow and seeing such a bright colour, but I told myself that I'd get used to it.

After viewing the video footage, I wasn't so sure. The blue didn't look like the rich blue that was unwrapped at Frontenac Outfitters. It appeared pale, like a light sky blue.

If the colour that was captured by the video camera was the true blue of my kayak, I wouldn't have chosen that colour.

I've been out in my kayak five times this season, and every time we've gone out, the sky has been cloudless and the sun has shone brightly. And when I've made a video of our outing, the blue of my kayak has not been accurately captured.

Have a look at the latest YouTube video, when we paddled the Mississippi River from Pakenham to the base of the Blakeney Rapids.

Pale, huh?

DW asked me, after this paddle, if I liked my new kayak. "The kayak itself is fantastic. I'm just not feeling the azure colour. I should have stuck to red or gone with the orange model."

It's too late. There's nothing I can do about it now.

On Saturday, for our fifth paddle, we put our kayaks in the Jock River and did a 10K round-trip trek toward Richmond and back. It was late in the afternoon and a lot of time, we were shaded by trees on the western bank of the river. And for most of the paddle, my kayak looked like the blue that I saw when we picked it up.

Ironically, I decided to leave my video equipment at home. I just wanted to paddle without thinking about capturing our trip.

As the sun got low on the horizon, I took a photo with my smartphone. And for the first time, I saw my kayak by its true colour. The photo has been unedited.

I'm sure I'll get used to the colour and hope that I eventually bond with it, no matter what light hits it. After all, the kayak itself is awesome and I know that when we hit big water, there's no kayak that I'd rather be in.

Paddling Petrie Island

It's somewhere we've been meaning to go pretty much since we first ventured out with our original kayaks, in 2020.

In our very first kayaking video, where we put our red and yellow Deltas into the South Nation River, at Jessups Falls, we drove past the turnoff for Petrie Island, on the eastern limits of Orleans, in Ottawa's east end. DW and I mentioned that it would be nice to check it out—and in fact, we once drove onto the island to see about putting in our kayaks but didn't have them strapped to the roof of our Niro at that time.

But we never actually returned with our boats.

So far, this kayaking season, we seem to be making decisions almost last-minute about heading out on the water, and at that, we haven't really had places in mind. Our paddle out at Burritts Rapids was almost improvised, though we're glad we went. We thought we might go to Petrie Island on that day, but by the time we got moving and were able to mobilize our Paddlefolk, I felt it was too late in the morning. I had the impression that you had to get to Petrie Island before the crowds flocked to it.

So we held out, and made the last-minute decision to try this spot on the following weekend.

Surprisingly, there was already a lot of activity on Petrie Island when we arrived before 8:30 on a Saturday morning. We discovered, when we reached the parking lot that's closest to the put-in spot for canoes and kayaks, that there was a race that was being held by several of the canoe clubs in the Ottawa area.

We had no problem getting our kayaks in the water on the docks that are in this bay, but race officials warned us to not go left when we exited the bay, as there were lanes marked out and canoeists were racing along that area. There was still lots of public space if we paddled to the right.

Not being familiar with Petrie Island, we didn't know where various channels around the many islands led, whether we'd take a bay into a dead end or find a narrow channel that would keep us moving westward. But that was part of the fun of exploring somewhere new.

DW and I were thrilled to see so many Delta kayaks on the water, from recreational crafts to long, touring vessels like ours. Seeing a Delta gives us the same sense of excitement that we imagine a Ferrari owner gets at seeing another Ferrari on the road.

I almost feel that way when I see another Niro drive past mine. There aren't a ton of them on the road.

We spent less than two hours and covered more than six kilometres. And surprisingly, we performed one portage—something we didn't expect to do when going around a set of islands.

Check out the video. It's 12-and-a-half minutes, so give yourself a break.

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Happy Monday!