The 65+ degree day yesterday had me begging to go kayaking. My first challenge came on Saturday when my daughter flat-out refused to consider kayaking on Sunday. For the better part of a few hours, I acted like I didn't hear her and simply told everyone that we were going kayaking. We finally talked about it over dinner - why didn't she want to go kayaking?! She said that she didn't want to go until the decorations + pretty princess stuff were on the boat. I rationalized with her that we weren't taking it out, we were doing "sea trials" to make sure it was waterproof and that if we waited until after the decorations that we'd possibly have to damage the "pretty stuff" in fixing any waterproofness issues.

Apparently I finally sold her on kayaking. It was an all day endeavor. But, we had our christening of the boat around 12:30 and launched shortly after.

I launched her first - stern first because of the outriggers. It was a muddy shoreline - her boats gotten it's first slime and muck in, on and all around it. After the obligatory photo shoot - I handed over her paddle and slide her backwards. The first couple of paddle strokes brought her right back onto the bank. We talked (extremely briefly) about how to make it go backwards. She backed out, turned and headed up the river! Wait! Wait! I don't have my paddle assembled nor was I fully ready to launch.

As I was sliding my boat down to the water's edge, she called over (full of excitement), "Daddy! I'm stuck on a log!" "Well, paddle backwards off of it." "No... OK." I got distracted by my paddled and launching - the next thing I know, she's by the shore/launch again.

The outriggers worked better than I could imagine. I did wrap one of my cam straps around the outriggers and under the hull. They worked well enough that she could lean as far as she wanted and there was no risk of capsize. In fact, she didn't understand why she couldn't sit on the back deck and paddle (she could have - she wouldn't have capsized, I was concerned for her sliding off and the water was COLD!).

We had lunch on a nice muddy spot along the shore. I was hoping for a nice rocky shore line, but hunger won. I had the wonderous joy of sinking shin-deep into muck. Lunch was good, snacks were good - being out there with just Paige and I was great.

After lunch, she fished for a while and we started to head back. By this point, it was getting to be close to 4pm and the temps had dropped a bit. She told me she was cold, so we pulled up to the muddy shore again where I dug another shirt and a fleece blanket out for her. I towed her back - but, I certainly didn't mind!

It was a good day - we got a couple of compliments on the outriggers, the boat and comments that we were lucky to be out there together. Too right.