Lucas wrote:Those pics are beautiful and the name of the beverage is a real hoot.
That's their alcohol-free beer
Sums up my feelings exactly when I've had a long, shit day at work, would love to sit back and crack a cold one, but Mamma Finland says no because I got to the supermarket till at 21:00:01.
The sunset wasn't actually a sunset, it dipped down almost to the horizon and went back up again. Amazing to think that I was looking over the North Pole at Anchorage's noon. I'd noticed just as I crawled into the tent that there was smoke and the occasional flame licking out from the fireplace, but thought, "Nah, it'll be fine, stop being paranoid." Then that sun dipped below the clouds, lit the whole tent bright orange, and my first thought was "SHIT! Island's on fire!"
Once I'd recovered from that, though, I woke the fire up again, made coffee, and stood on a rocky outcrop and watched the sun till it went back up into the clouds again.
Lucas wrote:ultra-cheap inflatable at one time that, even with a skeg, was basically made for 360s
In the UK I had an earlier version of the Intex that had no skeg, and it was terrible. This one does, and it makes a huge difference, but I'm really looking forward to having something that actually tracks properly.
Lucas wrote:Not having to load up a heavy kayak on top of a vehicle must be dang nice, too. With three yaks, it's a real pain in the butt and takes at least a solid 20-30 minutes to make sure they're sandwiched right.
I don't have a vehicle here, and not much chance of squeezing a hard-shell boat into the "tenants' outdoor sporting equipment storage area" (don't ask me what the Finnish is, I gave up on that one). So inflatable or folding would be the only practical choice. But it opens up possibilities that I wouldn't otherwise consider. Throw a big backpack on, get the bus downtown, and go grill sausages on an island for the afternoon. Jump on the train and go to any number of big lakes. Hell, it's light enough and small enough to check it into an airliner hold (with some precautions), so I can take my kayak pretty much anywhere. I have all sorts of plans for that.
I've had to buy a backpack cover because Finnair's "special handling" munched a hole in my brand new boat's backpack and took a ding out of the boat itself (thankfully it still holds pressure, but grrrr). The lifejacket is the bigger PITA, because it's self-inflating and therefore might contain explosives. It doesn't, it has a CO2 bottle identical to the 200 already on the damn plane, but every flight I have to wait an hour for a chat agent to get permission. They used to have a form on the website but killed it.
My friend and I applied for airline jobs in Australia, but they didn't Qantas.