Firsts V: Qajaq

It's been over two months since another of those first times that still seem to remain reasonably frequent in my paddling. Thanks to the kindness of Xabier, boat-builder extraordinaire and fellow inland paddler and Kayak de Mar forumite, I had the chance to paddle a beautiful (see the pics, don't just take my word for it) Skin-On-Frame, West Greenland style qajaq that he had just finished.

The qajaq's maiden voyage took place in Cazalegas, a nice, not too distant reservoir (which I was also visiting for the first time) which proved quite interesting in the bird-watching department. The male of a couple of Marsh Harriers seemed to take interest in us and stayed nearby for good chunks of the outing and in the groves at the reservoir's tail the group, i.e., Xabier, Juan Antonio (whose photographs illustrate this entry), Jesús and I saw Night and Purple Herons.

It was a bright, if somewhat windy morning when we departed from near the dam. The wind kept increasing as we paddled, bringing clouds and stirring a substantial chop. Following wind and following chop, I guess you could say as they both came straight from our sterns. When after somewhat over 6 km, we reached the end of one of the reservoir's tails, Xabier and I switched boats and I entered for the first time a SOF kayak to paddle her on the return leg of the trip.

I was surprised by how solid and robust she felt. I had abundantly read and heard that SOFs were not fragile, quite the contrary actually, but for some reason it hadn't really clicked in my mind. Well, it has now. My first thought was a pleased confirmation of how well my Greenland paddle went with the boat, but that was quickly superseded by the first hand experience of what a deep V hull does to initial stability (pretty much killing it, if I trust my first impression), but also of how secondary stability quickly comes to the rescue.

And as soon as I had the boat moving, sensations completely changed. It suddenly felt very stable and hardly tilted at all. By now the wind blowing straight against us was quite strong, to the delight of some windsurfers that had suddenly appeared. We had to work to make progress. The qajaq kept her course as if on rails, but responded well to moderate edging. It also was a great opportunity to verify that, yeah, a totally flat deck means a rather wet ride even if all you are pinching is shortish lake chop.

I enormously enjoyed those 6 km back to the put in and I think that, had I built the boat myself, the feeling would have come dangerously close to pure bliss. I don't know yet when, but I now know that one day I will just have to build a SOF.