Re: [Paddlewise] kayaks and .50 cal......

Steve and some others have been back channel about things... and I had
already replied to him when I decided that it really has enough for the
group. So here it is. :)

On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 5:03 AM, <Nole4ever_at_aol.com> wrote:

> yes, it is down.... a clean kill..... right between the "K and the A" of
> Kawasaki.
>

LOL... tourist areas almost always have a "local" bar scene that features
comedians and musicians who sing, talk and joke about tourists and
developers. I never lived in Honolulu but I was in port so often that many
people in town thought I lived there. Including the denizens of one of
"those" kind of clubs; upstairs, smoky, dark. Hicks would have fit right in.

I'm a jet ski operator... and, if I say so myself, a damn good one. We have
two of them. One of them is a 3-person job with forward and reverse, several
compartments for storage, and handles almost as well as my 25-foot Carver
sport fishing boat. But my favorite jet ski, "my* jet ski, is a convertible.
It converts from a jet ski with a motocross-type seat to a jet ski with no
seat (stand up) to a jet-ski with a seat mounted right down on the deck. It
will carry 2 people if one of them is under 3 years old. SeaDoo, when it
heard that I had one and liked it, immediately discontinued the line.

My wife's jet ski is basically a useless piece of crap. It serves as basic
water-borne transportation slightly better than my stand-up but it's not
really much fun to operate unless your idea of fun barely breaks out of
negative numbers on my list of fun.

A good way to see how the world looks at almost anything is to check the art
world. There are tons of very arty pictures of horses, horses and wagons,
and horses and barges. There are wonderful paintings of sailboats and
whales, sailboats at anchor, sailboats awaiting launch at the yacht club. I
have some swell watercolors of kayaks (thanks mostly to Pam) and even some
antique photos of Inuits towing home whales. I even have an exquisite
side-lit photo of just the frame of a kayak resting like the skelaton of
some sea critter on a beach.

I defy you to find anything remotely resembling art featuring jet skis.
About the best you'll get are "action shots" featuring spray, barely clad
bodies, and spray. (Did I mention spray?)

I have so many questions for jet ski operators. Such as: Why do they go in
circles? Do they reverse the circles to unwind? Why did they buy a jet-ski
with a huge seat and then crouch over it in some crippled attempt to mimic a
stand-up jet ski? And the most important question of all: Why do they have
to go in circles just off my dock when their own goddam dock is only 200
yards up the lake?

I am, in general, not happy with jet skis except when I'm driving one.
(Which is also, come to think of it, pretty much the way I look at flying.)
Well, when I'm driving mine. But as far as I'm concerned the stories of
kayakers capsized by the wakes of jet skis have either been written by
people who have never seen those itty-bitty wakes or by drunks. Because a
jet ski wake is the most puny, dinky, unusable wake there is. My dad had a
3-hp Evinrude on a 12-foot aluminum fishing boat and *that* made a better
wake than any jet ski I've ever seen.

Why do so many people buy them? I mean even their WAKES are useless!!!
Almost every other type of vessel has some redeeming qualities but I've yet
to find any for the jet ski. Except for mine, of course..... it's fun and if
you get tired of doing something with it set up one way, set it up another
way and give *that* a try.

Otherwise, aiming between the "K" and the "A" seems reasonable to me.


Craig Jungers
Moses Lake, WA
www.nwkayaking.net
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