We can for sure say that the Hobie Tandem Island (TI) kayak we bought this past summer of 2021 is without a doubt the best boat we’ve ever had. And believe me, we have experience having owned over 18 small water crafts (boats and kayaks) over the past 27 years. The only issue with the TI is that as much as it is amazing on the water, it is a pure beast on land. It is very heavy, weighing over 230 lbs fully rigged. And even with dollies built for rolling in the sand, it is still brutal pulling it up the beach. Thankfully we’ve had help from folks on the beach on most days. Pretty much the first thing out of Dan’s mouth when people come up to check us out when we’ve landed is “you can have it for five bucks” - because when on shore it is not fun at all! Once we’re in the park though, all is good. The wheels work wonderfully. We pull it to our site and store it beside the RV under the sun shade we’ve hung on the drivers side. That keeps it tucked away out of view and protected from the sun.
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| A view of the shoreline from where we go out and play with the whales |
On most days we go way out, a good 2+ miles offshore. It’s in the 100 ft+ depth that the whales hang out, so many times that’s where you’ll find us. We have ventured south a few miles from our beach too which takes you past some pristine untouched beaches that are only accessible by the water. Absolutely breath taking! We have however only launched off our beach. Even though there are many other beaches within driving distance we’re not keen on hauling it up onto the truck rack and securing it - let alone taking it off and loading it up again once we’re done. That’d take all the fun out of it for sure.
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| This gives you an idea of how far out we go We’re the blue dot and the heart is our beach |
Here’s a short clip of us out on the kayak right off our beach. It is indescribably serene and peaceful out on the water. Every time we go out we can’t help but say out loud
“I love this boat!”.
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| There we are coming into shore. You can see a shrimp boat off in the distance behind us |
And here are some pictures of the fish we’ve caught. We’re catch and release fishers though, so all these creatures lived to swim another day.
The top two photos are the biggest fish we’ve caught. The locals refer to them as “Toro”. They are in the tuna family with red meat. Toro translates to “bull” in Spanish, named because they fight like a bull when caught. The one in the picture Dan is holding took him 45 minutes to bring in - a beast! The one I’m holding didn’t take me as long, thankfully!
Here is a quick video of a cool close encounter with a whale followed by a clip of what these fish look like as they swim together in a large circle. We keep our eyes out now for this signature pattern in the water. No need to hook anymore of these big boys - a 45 minute fight can tire you out fast. Been there, done that, got the t-shirts as the saying goes!
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| Local fishing guides told us this would have been a prize fish, having caught one this size from our kayak. I can’t remember what kind of fish it is |
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| I think this is called a trigger fish |
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| Bonito A beautiful fish. We actually had a double header of these. Lines were crossed and we thought there was no way we’d get them to the boat, but we did! |
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| Spotted red snapper. So pretty! |
Our adventures haven’t been without their mishaps though. More than once we’ve had to make repairs to the kayak. It started initially with broken rudder pins. The rudder pins are meant to fail so that the rudder mechanism itself isn’t damaged. Sometimes if coming in on rough water the force of the waves hitting the rudder can break the pin. And sometimes it’s inadvertently when people who think they are helping try to give us a push out and they push on the rudder and break the pin. I think most people think we’re rude as we tend now to yell at them as we’re going out “please don’t help us”! Thankfully we had some spares! But those are no big deal really, the big deal was when we noticed the AKA arms on the starboard side of the kayak were cracked! The aluminum arms were split right open and we hadn’t even realized it. We later learned that it was from coming in on rough seas (again) where the boat is turned sideways in the waves forcing all the weight onto the AMA (the red pontoons) and AKA (the aluminum arms that connect the AMA to the kayak). Hose clamps and electrical tape to the rescue. At least now we know that in rough seas we need to roll up the trampolines so that the AKAs and their built in failsafe nylon screws can allow them to retract and prevent the damage.
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| The split in the AKA |
And of course we’ve also had an amazing experience seeing whales. When we arrived mid December we were out in the kayak just about every other day as conditions were perfect. From about mid December to late January I’d say we saw whales every single time we were out. As we moved into February the water got very rough and we weren’t out in the kayak as often. About mid March the water started to calm down again, allowing us to go out more regularly but our whale sightings have been much less frequent. Thankfully, I did take a number of short videos of our experiences earlier on in our trip. Sometimes they got quite close to us, but not quite as close as Dan wanted. One of his goals was to have whale snot sprayed on him - lol!
Here’s a short clip of a few of our whale experiences. I had a much longer clip, but couldn’t load it so I cut it down to the best clips. We’ll see though, we still have a few more weeks to go…maybe the whale snot could still happen…stay tuned.
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