Kayak bumper cars

I attended a beginning kayaking course at Enatai Beach in Bellevue this evening with a friend from work. It was a total blast! We got outfitted with kayaks, lifejackets, spray skirts, and paddles and then one by one we each got into a kayak and went out onto the lake to wait for everyone else. The getting in part wasn't so hard, but it's been over a year since I was last in a kayak, so the waiting on the lake part turned out to be a feat. Because of boats and jet skiis going by there were decent-sized waves that were quickly moving towards the elevated fishing pier. In about 10 minutes there were three of us stranded all smashed together on the swim area buoy lines desperately trying not to get sucked under the fishing pier. One poor lady was paddling furiously and going absolutely nowhere. Our instructor saw what was happening and then laughingly told us to go out further on the lake and get away from the swim lines.

Once away from that disaster we finally got going and learned how to paddle, spin the boat around in circles, go backwards, and stop. Our instructor even gave us a few demonstrations on rolling, which of course no one else would try. When the lesson first started it was literally like kayak bumper cars. No one could stop and everyone was just sort of crashing into each other. By the end of the lesson we could actually control the kayak.

We started from Enatai Beach and then kayaked through the Mercer Slough and back out. It turned out that getting out of the kayak was a much harder task for most people and there were about three people who went swimming in the process. It was pretty funny.