Wednesday, May 24, 2017

My First Oru Kayak Adventure--Nisqually Mud Flats, WA---May 22, 2017

Finally, the rain has abated from the Pacific Northwest since my return from Loreto, Mexico.  Monday, May 22nd was the hottest day of the year here so I figured what better time to try out my new lightweight kayak.  We recently moved from Seattle to Lacey, WA and our home is about 3/4 mile by trail to Puget Sound and the Nisqually Mud Flats. Our property and the path down to Puget Sound were once owned by the Atlas Powder Company who used the area and dock to load munitions for the various wars ranging from WWII, Korea, and Vietnam.

Since it was a warm, calm day, I decided that this would be my first adventure with the Oru Kayak, I recently purchased.  It is an origami folded kayak that weighs just 26 lbs.   I headed down the trail to Puget Sound after posing with the Oru Kayak in its backpack after posing with it in our backyard in the Jubilee development.




Once at the abandoned ammo depot wharf area, I assembled the kayak for its maiden voyage.



I just wanted to see how it would do, however, I ended up paddling all the way to the Billy Franks Jr. National Wildlife Refuge with its wooden walkway that goes about 2 miles out from the National Park Resource Center.



Although the pictures do not show up the Mountain very well, I had beautiful views of Mt. Rainier on my way there which were not captured by my photos.

Fortunately, I came across two other kayakers from California who volunteered to take my picture with the wildlife refuge in the background.




Along the way, I passed by an oyster harvesting group of boats and facilities and even scraped the bottom of my kayak on some of the oysters they had seeded in the area.

On the way back to the dock and trail, I had the Olympic Mountain Range in my view the entire time along with an incoming tide that assisted in my return.




It was a good outing, but I think I need to review the video on how to fold up the kayak after using it.  They say it just takes 3 minutes and for this time I took about 10 minutes with the first two folds the most puzzling.

Click on this link to see how the Oru Kayak is assembled:  Assembling Oru Kayak

I have recently uploaded all of my travel videos to YouTube now that they allow longer uploads and you may want to see my travel adventures there.  That link is

 https://www.youtube.com/c/huntforgold.  


If you do go there, please subscribe to my video channel since it will help me eventually get some income there and help with my future travels. Fewer people are using DVDs so I am transitioning to streaming my travels on my YouTube channel.