Completed my first water cache today with my caching partner from Martin, Pharmd93. Recently I purchased a 2-person inflatable kayak over the Internet from Wal-Mart. Kayak cost $88, with tax and shipping was about $100. Today was the maiden voyage of the kayak and was an adventure. It was Pharmd93's first experience in a kayak and my second time.
While blowing up the kayak, a couple of local fisherman investigated what we were doing. We did ask questions about the TWRA lake since they were familiar with it. They left about the time we put the boat in the water. Being that it's summer time and venomous snake such as water moccasins and copperheads are out, we armed ourselves with 9mm handguns.
We headed out and quickly figured out we were going to have a tough time. Trying to keep the boat on course was difficult and didn't help both of our GPSr's had a hard time keeping a course. We ended up going the long way around. Fighting the wind was not easy either. We made a beeline to the other side to get out of the wind and then coasted towards the cache. Ended up in still water and expected to see snakes. Thankfully, we didn't see any snakes. Took some steering to maneuver to the cache location. I wanted to make certain where we made land fall, we were in the correct place.
Getting out of the boat was a chore and found out my waterproof shoes were not waterproof when submerged. Ended up getting my camera wet and my handgun was soaked. Found the cache and unable to take any pictures with the damp camera. Headed back and had less trouble due to the wind being at our back and we were finally figuring out how to steer the craft.
Some lessons were learned.
1) Wear crocs or sandals. Kayak and geocaching, one will get wet.
2) Find a pond and practice steering the boat.
3) With the kayak I am using, I will have to stick to water caching in the summer time. I will get wet.
4 comments:
Wow, caching, kayaking, and guns. Sounds like a fun trip. I've heard people recommend crocs as a good choice for camp shoes during backpacking adventures too. They won't stay wet and are supposed to be very comfortable.
Geocaching With Team Hick@Heart
I had a great time! Thanks for inviting me to go along. This was my first 5/5 cache I have gotten also my first kayak ride. It takes a bit to figure out how to steer it, but we did alright. What an adventure! Geocaching has taken me places and given me experiences I never wouldn't have had otherwise. Looking forward to the next caching run!
PharmD93
I should have looked at your blog before now, cool post.
Congrats to you and Pharmd93. You picked a great cache to try out the boat. I wish there were more pics maybe next time. I'm glad everything worked out for yall. It sounds like the beginning of the journey would have been a lot of fun watching.
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