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Customer Testimonials Love New Kayaking Pastime
Hi Larry
Trudy & I want to take this opportunity to thank you & Christine for putting us into kayaks that have served us so well over the past 2 boating seasons. Impressively, you sized us up & matched us with a pair of kayaks that have enabled us to progress from day tripping to week-long, self-contained expeditions. We have gone from, "how do you get into these things" to a certain degree of on-water proficiency & comfort that even we did not think we'd be able to achieve. Some of our paddles to date include the Rideau Canal System from end to end twice, the Trent/Severn Canal from Port Severn to Trenton & the circumnavigation Prince Edward County.
We also have Christine to thank for getting us into another one of our favorite activities...geocaching. During a lunch break at one of Christine's kayaking courses we attended, she talked about the GPS, GPSr's & geocaching. Her knowledge piqued our interest so we did some research, bought a GPSr & we haven't looked back since. We now do paperless caching with a PDA & have over 400 geocache finds to our credit. In fact we've been able to combine kayaking & geocaching to find those "elusive" island caches that are so much fun. By inputting our vehicle's coordinates into the GPSr before leaving shore we've also been able to explore island-studded lakes with confidence knowing that no matter how far we go off the beaten path, we can always find our way back. During our last Rideau trip we inputted over 160 waypoints into the GPSr & while they were'nt needed for navigation they did help us answer questions such as; how far to the next lock, how far to our lunch/rest/other break, are we there yet?
Thanks Larry & Christine....you've contributed much to our enjoyment of the outdoors.
Russ & Trudy Kitchen
Thomasburg, Ontario
Love the New H2O Canoe
Hi Larry, Christine and Matt,
I just wanted to give you some feedback, and express my appreciation, on our first use of the H2O Composites Canadian canoe we bought a couple of weeks ago. I appreciate the initial help Matt provided in making the choice of this canoe and for Larry and Christine staying open late on Tuesday May 13th so we could pick it up! We didn't rush it into the water due to weather and other priorities going on. But the two weeks since getting it allowed me to prepare the canoe for the first use. I applied the aerospace protectant to the outside of the canoe and put three coats of Scandinavian Tung oil on the wood package. I also added a stainless steel ring to the stern wood deck for mooring the canoe ( I will likely add one on the bow too). We thought the seats might be a little low and I am planning to make seat hangers that raise them up a bit.
The Canadian is excellent though! I am very happy with it. As we launched it yesterday (we just chose to spend 2-3 hours on the Moira River from a boat launch just beside the Highway 37 bridge over it south of Roslin where it is fairly wide), it was stable for putting gear in and stepping into it in shallow water at the shore. As we started off, and for the entire paddle, we didn't experience very much roll at all. The canoe seems to sit relatively high in the water but the wide flat bottom seems to keep it stable. The shoe keel definitely protects the bottom during launch and landing (didn't encounter any other rocks when paddling). It moves very well tracking through the water, whether upstream or downstream and with both head and tail winds. We didn't go cross-wise to either wind or current much but didn't have any stability problems when turning through those conditions.
I was paddling in the stern and I felt the canoe is very responsive, both to J and sweep strokes for turning. It seems easy to get a bit of momentum going too, which makes turning even easier. We did a couple of double backs (to look at a spot where something had been pulling clams out of the water and to follow some Blue Herons between marshes) near the shore at low speed and it turned well. Pausing our paddling to have a sandwich and drink some water was very pleasant and again the canoe seemed very stable despite more movement within the canoe on our part. We could relax and feel very confident rather than be on edge to a "tippy" canoe. This added to the pleasantness factor of our paddle.
Bev and I are very pleased with this choice of canoes and also with your help with this purchase. Thank you very much! We look forward to the next time we are in the neighbourhood and can drop in to say hi.
Regards,
J S
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