I see that Steve already made the comment that came to my mind as well. If I knew I was going to be paddling on a particular creek fairly often, I would see if someone along the creek would mind if I left my canoe or kayak there. People who have canoes out on their lawns would be a good place to start.. or farmers. On a couple of creeks where I've paddled, I've even seen canoes stowed upside down in large willow trees overarching the creeks.. obviously not the most secure place, but one of the canoes has been up in the tree for about 3 years now without being taken, so I suppose it depends on where you live (people around here tend to leave other people's stuff alone).
What are the creeks and rivers like where you live? From my limited experience, it seems that a lot of the creeks and rivers come down out of the mountains and tend to be high volume in spring (some being very high volume, for that matter), but that most sort of konk out to being very shallow with a lot of gravel shoals by late summer. I would think you would want something fairly light for doing lift-overs to get past the shoals and gravel bars and around snags from the early spring run-off. As for going out on the ocean, I agree with Steve.. 2 entirely different crafts. I don't know what part of the north CA coast you're along, but I think you would need a very seaworthy kayak if you were going out in any of the areas I'm familiar with.
As for kayaks suitable for creeks, my neighbour's son (who was very much into studying aquatic life before going off to university to do a biology degree), has paddled most of the local creeks around here with some small, cheap kayak that he bought years ago. Can't tell you what kind it was, but it was small enough that he used to stick it in the back of an old hatchback Saab and take off down the road with it sticking about 4 or 5 feet out the back.
Re: Canoes, in case you're interested. I have a 15 foot kevlar-carbonlite canoe which is extremely light and stable (around 40 lbs), but with around a 700 lb. load range. I use it almost exclusively for travelling in creeks, swamps, and lakes. I do a lot of nature photography and am often out in my canoe all day, so I wanted something that could carry my camera equipment, lunch, extra clothes, binoculars and stuff, but still be light enough to paddle solo. This is just enough of a canoe that I can bring along my husband and our large dog as well, but it is primarily designed as a solo canoe. |
