Karma

Could there be a karmic balance to the universe?  Is too much good karma necessarily followed by a little bad karma to keep the universe in balance?  I had an incredible kayaking trip to Cape Lookout National Seashore last week followed by a really productive weekend working on the new kayak.  And then this week, every machine I touch seems to malfunction.  I also seem to be making very stupid and time consuming mistakes on the new kayak, but fortunately, nothing that I can not fix. 

Last week was my first time to Cape Lookout National Seashore.  I've been looking at it on Google Earth for over a decade wondering what it was like.  I was hoping to have the new kayak done by June 1st so that I could take it for a test run in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) of northern Minnesota, but when that did not happen, I changed my plans at the last minute.  I have two friends who live in the southern states.  We were all going to meet up in or around Duluth, MN on June 1st.  It seemed like a better plan to kayak Cape Lookout instead of the BWCA. 

Not only was Cape Lookout a beautiful and challenging place to kayak, it could possibly have been even more remote than the BWCA.  There were nights that we camped on the beach and I doubt there was another person within about 4 miles of us.  I love watching the tide.  We had one afternoon where we were stuck on a tidal flat for three hours waiting for the tide to come in.  Once it did, the water rose quickly lifting us and carrying us down to our next campsite. 

OK so now on to the bad karma.  I broke two lawn mowers recently along with my band saw.  This evening, I fixed two separate problems with my band saw only to realize after I spent a couple hours cutting out parts that I used plywood of the wrong thickness.  Yeah, I know, this is really stupid.  I might be able to plane it down to a thinner thickness, but I'm not going to attempt that while I'm feeling the bad karma coursing through the universe.  I'll do that tomorrow night. 

As for the weight of the new kayak, I can easily lift both the hull and deck.  I did not weight it, but it will be very portagable when finished.  I'm designing the cockpit shape so that it will rest on my shoulders without needing a portage yoke. 

Kayak Update

I was hoping to have the new kayak complete for a week long kayak trip to Cape Lookout National Seashore starting on June 1st.  That doesn't seem possible now.  I had some delays because of uncertainty in the construction process. 

The problem I encountered was that I took the hull off the form before starting the deck.  I thought that I would be able to build the deck to the shear line I drew on the forms.  I realized too late that I would never be able to accurately do this.  So I put the hull back onto the form to use it as a guide.  The hull fits loose on the form so accuracy is still a concern.  However, I think I can manage any inaccuracies. 

I have the hull built and fiberglassed.  Its weight is low enough that a 41 pound total completed weight is very possible.  I can easily portage 41 pounds.

The first one of anything is always the hardest.  Now that I better understand the process, I will build another kayak as soon as I finish this one.  The next one should go much faster.  I would also like to build a light weight small kayak for doing day trips on Lake Erie.

New Kayak

After a long and cold winter, it has finally warmed enough to start working on my new kayak again.  I finished planking the haul on Sunday.  I should be able to sand and fiberglass the haul next weekend.  Then, I will turn the mold over, and plank the deck.  Once the deck is finished, I will join both halves together. 

My goal is to have the kayak done for a trip to the Boundary Waters in northern MN by June 1st. 

I was planning on doing a thru paddle of the NFCT in 2014, but one of my friends has talked me into a 300 mile trip on the Yukon River in Alaska next summer.  I don't think I can pass up a trip like that!  He's still in the planning stages so there is no definite plans yet.  He tends to be slightly monomaniacal when it comes to wilderness trips so I know I can count on him to figure out the logistics.