Finally, at last, the first contact with the liquid element.
Sunday morning I woke up to a rain pouring sunrise, without sun.
I diddled around till 12:00 making up my mind if or not, but the whatever won..
Put on the roofrack, just the two supports, having an estate car they are pretty far appart 1,2 m at least. As I stll don´t have toggles, no endpours, just the raw shell two straps had to be sufficient, one cushion on each support and of we went.
It kept raining, but the little pond was liquid again.
Boy, I had a time getting into the thing without gettin wet and muddy booties.
I´m afraid I got my first scratches this way. Next time I´ll have to take my particular launching carpet...
I wore a neopren long john, longsleeved undershirt and the rain jacket.
I sat on one of the cushion I used on the roof rack bars and another went as a back rest. Once I got installed the moment came. I pushed away with my twigg and nearly capsised. I managed to keep dry, but mainly because I was terrified to drop into the freezing water, even with long john. I slowly started and off I went. The greenland paddle works as expected, nothing to wobble, and depending on requirements you can dig in deeper or not, do sweeping braces or just little strokes. Is it normal for a seakajak to turn into the wind?? Thats the only thing that puzzeled me, but it´s bearable. Beeing empty a lot of boat shows, I guess and it is therefore more susceptible to wind and so on.
I got where I wanted to and back in one piece and dry. I think I´ll have to put in footrest or something similar. I had a better feeling bracing myself a bit with my knees, so I kept my legs not extended and believe me in the long run I was starting to feel the first cramps coming.(They did not in the end)
So enough is enough, my thanks once more to this superb forum, thats where I got my inspiration and encouragement if things did not turn out as expected. I think I owned you this report.
Please be tolerant with my unpolished english, it will improve over the years.
Joaquin