Head Spin

I imagine taking three kayaks out for an afternoon of adventure is something like trying to get little kids out of the house for the day. All the preparations are enough to make your head spin, but of course, it's completely worth it. First there was the trip to the grocery store for sandwich stuff. Trav volunteered to go while I got ready, and he made me write him a list with specific instructions on turkey and how I like it sliced, and what kind of rolls and Sun Chips to buy.
When he got back, he put the orange boats on his car. There are two straps and two tie-downs for each boat, and it takes him about 15 minutes to do them all. While Trav was shopping, I organized all the straps/tie-downs, the PDFs, the scupper stoppers, the bilge pump, the beach towels, the sunblock, the cameras, and myself, and while I was untangling some of the tie-downs, I realized we were missing the straps for the green boat, so off to Lowe's I ran. A half hour later, I was home with straps and more ice.
The green boat, an Ocean Kayak Malibu Two XL, is a big sumbitch. It's 13' 4" long and weighs 61 pounds and in case you're wondering, no, it's not at all awkward to carry (note the sarcasm). It takes both of us to lob it onto my car, and lob we do. It rides upside down so we just have to pick it up and kind of flip it and drop it on the rack at the same time. After getting it up there, we had to tuck old towels between the boat and the crossbars (because I keep forgetting to buy Yakima crossbar pads from work) so we can cinch it down hard. Otherwise, it's plastic on plastic and the boat wiggles around too much. Trav strapped on that boat while I packed the cooler, and then I shimmied under the car to put on the tie-downs, and within ten minutes, the orange boats and I were following Trav and the green boat down Main Street on our way to Pineview where we met our nephew Brandon and his friend Josh for an afternoon on the water. The whole process, not including the drive there, took an hour and a half. Sheesh.
The cool thing about the Ocean Kayak is that it's basically an extremely oversized surfboard. You can stand up on it, swim/jump off of it, and climb back on with relative ease, and that's just what the boys did.