I got a brand new used thing!

Well you know me. 

I'm saving money!  

And what's this? A list of used rental kayaks your selling?

I can take a lesson and demo a couple of boats! 

The weekend plans really started to come together when a fellow riding buddy put notice out about an abbreviated version of his "Peaks Tour", hitting the summits of several Keweenaw mountains.  

So on a beautiful september weekend I met up with Bill and we got a solid 40 miles in of Keweenaw two tracks in and around the mandan loop. Found plenty of cool new trails and hit a couple of places I'd never been to like Lost Lake and Keystone Bay (Holy shit! There's a sandy beach out by the tip of the Keweenaw!)  

Bill had to bail early, but that gave me time to bike into my favorite camping spot on Fish Cove and go for a swim. Superior is warmer than I ever remember. Had a great night sleeping out under the stars. 

Next morning I got up and made my way in to Copper Harbor for a Basic Water Safety course with Keweenaw Adventure.  Maybe learn all those things I should have learned before say, paddling out to the Huron Islands.  

Anyway, I was the only one in the class and the instructor was pretty good, so we made a fair amount of progress in the harbor.  Maybe I was doing a pretty good job of not sucking, or maybe the instructor figured he had half a shot at keeping just one idiot from drowning- but we decided to go out on Superior and tackle the "big water".  There was a fair amount of wind generating some nice 3-4 foot rollers out in open water. This seemed kind of cool, but the rocky shore they were crashing against made me a but nervous...

Things turned toward adventuresome when I managed to break my paddle trying a T-rescue out there.  I'm pretty happy I managed to keep my swamped boat upright without a paddle while the instructor ran off chasing the remnants of my paddle.  

Honestly, it was bit overwhelming and had me moderately freaked out. I know enough to know what I don't know now, and I know how tiny mistakes can quickly become big ones. We were just offshore, had proper gear, and at least one pretty experienced person, so were in no real danger of anything bad happening, but you could just catch a fleeting glimpse of how something could...  

So obviously, I was completed hooked. Gave the instructor a good tip and then went and put a downpayment on the boat he was using- a 2010 Boreal Designs Fjell.  It was obviously way better than the Inukshuk I was paddling because it didn't seem to flip over as much.  ;)  

So yeah, couldn't pick it up until the rental season was fully over, which is OK because given the awesome weather we had in september and early october, I never would have gotten all my rally chores done with a new boat to play with.  

I paid the final deposit and took it home yesterday.  I should be positively unbearable by next spring staring at this all winter without any chance to use it:

Unless of course I maybe pick up a dry suit or really heavy wet suit.....