My wife and I waited till we were 70 years old to discover the real pleasures of kayaking. We were introduced to the sport years ago, under circumstances I no longer remember, and I was occasionally exposed to it through my job, which took me onto the river from time to time. Then at some point we discovered that we could take advantage of the periodic Napa River cleanup days to get some kayaking in: all you had to do was show up to volunteer on river cleanup day, and they would put you in a kayak with instructions to pick up trash not accessible from shore. It was great fun, exploring the shallows in search of soda cans and rubber balls.
But with all that encouragement, we never got a kayak of our own. Until last December, when the stars were finally aligned, or something, and we found a tandem kayak online to help us occupy the increased leisure time we were supposed to have in our seventies. Actually I spent a while researching kayaks, starting in the fall; my wife was sure that I was not serious, so it was very satisfying to surprise her.
So we had a new kayak, complete with mission: explore the Napa River. But it was winter, and suddenly the prospect of getting wet and cold seemed less attractive. It warmed up in February and we did manage an initial trip on February 27, starting out from Kennedy Park Boat Launch and paddling some two or three miles before getting tuckered out. But after that the weather turned cool again, and then the Corona epidemic arrived to take the wind out of our sails.
At first we couldn’t figure out what the social distancing rules were for kayakers. Somebody told me that boating was not permitted, although I didn’t think that was true. In any case, it wasn’t clear where you could put in. The Kennedy Park Boat Launch now had a small sign (one you could easily overlook, however) which seemed to say the launch was closed. And there was something about the pandemic that just sapped our enthusiasm, despite our best efforts to carry on; so it wasn’t till June that we made it back onto the river.
Since then we have somehow eased into a routine of going out a couple of afternoons each week. On a weekday afternoon the river seems like our private playground, and we just keep enjoying ourselves. Low tides get in the way a little, but not too much, and there are occasional fishing lines etc. to dodge. We knew we had gotten lucky the day we encountered three teenage boys jumping off the Wine Train bridge, full of bright laughter on a beautiful day. Lucky they missed our boat.
-Bob Zlomke