Dumb and Dumber

Here we are 'stuck' in Pentwater for a couple of day because of the wind and weather. We really do LOVE Pentwater so this was an actual treat for us and gave us more time to explore this amazing little harbor town. Per Brady's request, we checked out every little shop the town had to offer, we took a beautiful stroll to the light house and beach with Tuco (yes they have a dog beach!) and we were able to play around with our water toys! My idea was to kayak to a dune and take a little hike and have a little picnic with the pup. So, out came the kayak and we once again, reminded ourselves just how easy and effortless it is to pump up it up. It took less than 10 minutes before we were able to get it in the water. Honestly, the worst part of setting up the kayak is getting it out of our garage (aka the quarter berth).

So we loaded up and the three of us set paddling, or at least attempted to paddle, down the Pentwater Lake in search of a dune. It was a sunny but very windy day, around 25 knots out on Lake Michigan, but it seemed as though we were protected from the wind inland. Not even 10 feet from Further we began to have trouble, odd trouble with our kayaking skills. We couldn't keep the nose of the kayak straight no matter how hard we tried. We attempted to paddle every way we could think of; paddling opposite of each other, together with each other, Brady paddled without my help, I paddled without Brady's help, etc., etc. Nothing we did made us go straight. I imagine in my head that we were basically doing donuts in our kayak the entire time we were out on the lake. We started to notice that anytime the wind blew we would turn, and it was very hard to keep the nose of the boat straight. It was SO frustrating but we couldn't stop laughing at ourselves because we knew just how ridiculous we looked! While heading out we were passed by a couple of kayakers and I encouraged them to laugh at us too because we couldn't stop laughing at ourselves! Somehow we eventually made it across (we are talking about 100 yards) the smallest part of the lake before we decided to throw in the towel. Then we had the great thought of how were we going to get back if it took us over 30 minutes to get back this far!?! I already knew that Brady was having thoughts of throwing away the kayak the minute we got back to Chicago. 

Somehow we made it back to the dock. As we started to put away our disappointing toy I came to a realization that maybe, just maybe we got in the kayak the wrong way. So I asked Brady, "which way was the front when we were paddling?" he pointed to the end where we could now see the small fin keels underneath. I shared with him my thoughts and I was right, we were idiots. We were riding in the kayak backwards the entire time! The kayak looks the same front and back, and the seats just blow up and slip in either direction.  We had put the seats in facing backwards.  No wonder we couldn't go anywhere it in!!! Both fortunately and unfortunately, we realized it was user error and not a dysfunctional kayak so Brady agreed to keep it around for a little bit longer! That's 1 point for the kayak and 0 points for Nadine and Brady.