Paddle Equipment – Rather than renting everything in addition to the kayak, consider taking some or all of your paddling gear along with you. Here are some examples …

• Your own four-piece paddle – Especially if you have trouble adjusting to different paddles.
• Paddle float – Often something that is not available for rent.
• Paddling vest – A good fitting PFD is extremely important
• Kayak Clothing – To each his own.
• Spray Skirt – Optional, if you know in advance what size the cockpit is on the kayak you intend to rent.
• Miscellaneous – Ropes and zip ties and repair items.

Inspection – Make sure you go over the kayak to see if it meets your requirements for safety and operation. Everybody’s standards are different. Especially check out the seat to see that it will hold up for you. And the foot rests, if applicable.

Repairs – If the kayak needs a minor repair and the renter allows you, go ahead and do it yourself. That way you know it’s done correctly.

Courtesy – Treat the borrowed or rented kayak like it was your own. It just makes sense.

Hopefully these tips will help you out if you need to rent or borrow a kayak sometime. Thinking ahead and preparing for the occasion always makes for a better experience.

The TRAK folding kayak is a very high performance kayak that allows the paddler to adjust it’s hull shape using a patented system of levers. The materials used to manufacture the TRAK are also very durable and very high-tech. It’s even survived a trip down a ski jump in one extremely wild video. See it here.

The TRAK Files is a multi-episode video series produced by Wandering Wolf Productions for the new TRAK blog.

It was a beautiful day, sunny, not too warm but with a bit more wind than we would have liked. This was our kind of paddling, though, with lots to look at, beautiful homes with sailboats moored at their docks. There were so many different directions you could paddle, but seeing this was the first paddle of the year we didn’t over exert ourselves and stay out too long a time.

As I said it was windy and we did try to use the WindPaddle Aventure sail for part of the time, but with the narrow width of some of the water where we were paddling and the wind managing to change directions often, we decided to stow the sail and just paddle our Sea Eagle 330 inflatable kayak.

Along with the beautiful houses and boats, there were several interesting birds to check out. As we left the boat ramp there was on osprey nest on a channel marker and there was a bird in the nest when we passed by it the first time. We were told that they were nesting and that there were eggs in the nests right now. We also passed several kinds of ducks, and of course I had to try to get a picture of them as we passed by. As we were on the way back, one of my favorites, a blue heron flew overhead and landed in a tree just off to our right. He flew away before we got close enough to get a picture. Oh, well, I have a lot of heron pictures anyway.

We hadn’t heard anything about the New Bern area before we arrived. We knew it was near the Atlantic ocean and it looked like a nice relaxing place to check out. After our visit, I highly recommend that you make it a vacation destination. You will enjoy the area for it’s historic town, the many local attractions and you will find great places to kayak. And one last thing, you may not know it but New Bern is the birthplace of Pepsi Cola.

There is an online source that can help you out. One of the leading kayaking and canoeing information web sites, Paddling.net, has created a launch site map that covers the continental United States as well as some locations in Canada, Alaska and even Puerto Rico. The map is a cooperative resource, which means that paddlers can add launch locations to it to help out fellow paddlers. I’m not sure how many launch sites are on the map, but there are lots of red and blue dots, each one noting a launch location. Red dots indicate verified launch sites while blue dots indicate unverified launch sites, so that you’ll know whether you need to do additional research before locking them into your plans. One nice feature is that the latitude and longitude are included in the details on each of the sites, which make it easy to program into some GPS units.

The launch site map is an excellent resource for paddlers everywhere. Kudos to Paddling.net for putting it together and making it so accessible.

Scott Thomas, who I assume is a product tester for the site, wrote about the 285 and seemed to be fairly pleased with the craft. One thing he mentioned was that he could “really see the value in an inflatable after living in an apartment close to a major city.” He was also “very confident of its strength” since “some people are nervous about puncturing inflatables while fishing”. That’s something that Sea Eagle prides itself in with their 1000 denier fabric that can take on the claw end of a hammer (as shown in this video).

Scott was also pleasantly surprised with the stability when standing on the hard plastic floor. He said it was easy to stand and fish without worrying about capsizing. He also really liked the swivel seat. Both of these features come with the 285fpb Pro Angler package, which also includes the motormount. An oar set comes with both the Pro and Deluxe versions, however most fishermen opt for the Pro package because of all the available options.

Scott gives an honest appraisal of the 285. There are some negatives, as he explains, regarding rowing the craft, maneuvering in the wind and using the boat mainly in calm water. But overall, the review was favorable. You can read his complete Sea Eagle 2845fpb review and decide for yourself.

To learn more about pricing in US dollars and find out more about the Sea Eagle 285fpb Frameless Pontoon Boat, check out SeaEagle.com.