Alex's maiden voyage.

[Feral]

Well after a bit of sooking over me leaving him home yesterday, I decided to bite the bullet and take Alex for his first saltwater paddle today.

(See other post re prepping the yak)

We got to the Uhlman Road boat ramp about 7ish, to see Clawhammer off in the distance, and I reckon a good 15 knot wind. Not a breath at home, less than 10 minutes away!

A Quick think, conditions were pretty average for a young fella's first yak trip. It was a dead easterly, so I new there would be some protected country on the other side of the river, I had a nice new properly fitting yak style life jacket for him.(Well it was a good fit until he sat in the yak - honest!) He really wanted to go, there 3 experienced yakkers there to Shepard him and besides, being the weekend I was pretty sure Alex had skipped his bath then night before anyway.

So I told him to tie everything on, and booted him off the end of the ramp and told him to paddle.

And Paddle he did.

We headed down around the sand bar and slogged across the river until we were out of the breeze. Once there we worked to bank between the two boat public boat ramps. Conditions were actually quite pleasant.

Ferg managed a small flattie, Cameron had done a big trip up the river and back with no joy.Alex had fun feeding Gulps to the toadfish, after a couple of hours we called it quites before he got to bored or tired.

Home by about 10. Pretty good effort from Alex on a first paddle though, just under 3k's all up, albeit very leisurely apart from the river crossings, which were just a hard slog with the breeze and current being together. He went very well, next time I'll let him wear his inflateable jacket, it will be much more comfortable for him.

Now I just need to talk the PRFMA management board in to doing something so kids can get a NPD Permit for a yak when accompanied.