New boat: more labor than leisure
(Originally published August 2024)
A few weeks ago, Mark and I bought a little fishing boat.
Sold as an “inflatable kayak,” it’s basically a pair of 12-foot blowup pontoons with five aluminum slats set crosswise on top. The slats are mounted with two swivel seats, four rod holders, two oarlocks with oars and space in the back (the “stern,” to us maritime types) for an optional trolling motor.
Mark recently rediscovered his love for fishing, and we thought this craft, being extra stable, would make it better suited to fishing with the grandkids. Their tendency to jump about just for the fun of it made taking them out in a wobbly canoe or standard two-person kayak more of an adrenalin rush than Mark was looking for.
We decided to make the maiden voyage sans grandchildren. That way, he could get used to maneuvering the boat without worrying about getting hooked in the ear by the wild cast of an overzealous young angler.
Saturday morning, we parked at Dead Creek in Addison and, after christening the new craft with a can of grapefruit seltzer, pushed off. Mark manned the oars in the rear seat, while I sat up front with no responsibilities. I felt like Cleopatra gliding down the Nile.
“Mark swore and muttered as the oars repeatedly bashed his kneecaps.”
“Gliding,” it turned out, was a stretch.
Although the oars were ostensibly designed for this craft, the setup did not afford the range of motion required for a smooth arc. With every stroke, the handles banged Mark in the knees and rammed into my seatback.
We traveled in circles for a bit as Mark worked on a rowing strategy, then headed for the cattails. Veering back to clear water, oarlocks clunking in protest, we zig-zagged toward the other shore. Mark swore and muttered as the oars repeatedly bashed his kneecaps.
Grunting, he rowed more or less up the creek for a good 45 minutes, with occasional side quests whenever one oar or the other went rogue. While I had hoped to spot birds, the thunking of the oarlocks and the cursing of the husband drove away any wildlife I might have seen.
When we decided to head back, we ran into trouble: We were fighting both the current and a headwind. Mark rowed as hard as the oars would let him, but the boat made little forward progress.
One thing I should mention here: The grandkids had helped us assemble the kayak the previous weekend, with the eight-year-old and me in charge of attaching the accessories. We had screwed the oarlock mounts to the deck and finger tightened wingnuts to close up the oarlocks themselves. We did not, perhaps, possess the grip strength required for these tasks.
This bit of trivia gained relevance during Mark’s furious efforts to row us back to our starting point. Suddenly, we noticed that the oarlocks were loosening up and one of the mounts had begun racking ominously.
Every few minutes, Mark had to stop rowing to retighten things, and each time, the wind and water pushed us back almost as far as we had come since the last retightening.
I began to worry he’d pass out from exertion. Then I would drift helplessly, ending up in a marshy mass of cattails a long ways inland. I’d have to lug both the boat and Mark ashore, and that would mean getting my good sneakers wet.
It was in my best interest, therefore, to make sure he rowed us safely back to the truck. So I cheered him on and said things like “We’re almost there!” even though we both knew it wasn’t true.
While we moved, inch by inch, toward the far-off boat access, I pictured Mark in the future, trying to do all this in addition to reeling in fish and keeping an exuberant child from falling overboard.
I knew once we got home, he would fasten all the loose parts for good. But the unworkable ergonomics of those oars would surely take any “leisure” out of this leisure activity.
In the end, we made it back to shore well before dark, hours earlier than I had expected. We dragged the boat onto dry ground, and Mark collapsed in the grass.
Finally, I said, “Was buying this boat a mistake?”
He sighed.
“No, the boat is good,” he said, rubbing his sore knees. “But they lied when they said the trolling motor was ‘optional.’”
