We borrowed two kayaks from Kayak Academy to try them out on Lake Sammamish (which we’ve done once before). 

Alex had to put on our second kayak carrier first because we’re used to one tandem. 

The light blue is the Valley Etain and the red is TideRace Pace. 

I started out in the blue. 

Alex could literally do circles around me, since the red kayak was made for going fast (while still having good storage for camping). 

Blue had a skeg, which was easy to bring up or down as needed to try to keep up with my husband. Red had a rudder with a smart track rudder so you can still use the foot rests to push off of for power and use just your toe for maneuvering the rudder. 

We found a little beach and switched kayaks. 

Alex soon discovered the lack of secondary stability in Blue when he tried edging like he was in Red while turning and ended up in the water. 

We got to practice a T-rescue to get the water ou of his boat (I turned his kayak upside down perpendicular to mine while lifting up) then he got to practice getting back in from the water. 

It was 85 degrees out so we weren’t too worried about hypothermia 😉

Between the hot weekend weather and free park day there were a lot of people out, making launching and landing a careful procedure. 

All in all a wonderful day on the water and excitement as we narrow the search. 

Alex might have found the one with the TideRace Pace. 

He asked at kayak academy if my Hornet would go on sale when the new TideRace Xplore come in but unfortunately that’s a personal boat of one of the kayak academy peeps and the new shipment now doesn’t come until September. My search continues.