Kayaking Adventures!

This past weekend we got in a different form of cross training, kayaking! I’ve never done it before and Jordan absolutely loves the outdoors so it wasn’t hard convincing him to do it!

We signed up to do a tour with the Armand Bayou Nature Center in the south part of town. We’ve done a pontoon boat tour there before but wanted to see how different the tour would be on kayaks. Now this bayou has lots of alligators so that’s always a fun sight!

Texas has been so warm lately and this weekend was no different. Jordan and I lathered up in sunscreen and wore protective layers since we would be out on the water for most of the morning. I had actually started hydrating the day before and we both took lots of water with us!

The bayou we were kayaking in is super calm and perfect for beginners. There was some wind but nothing too terrible. We met our group, got assigned our kayaks and of course I ended up with a pink/purple one. It was easy getting it set up and paddling came pretty easy to me. I had done SUP before so I wasn’t worried about that.

Jordan ended up drifting off without me and then would speed up to catch up to me. He was a goofball and had a blast. There were many times I would look around for him and he would be floating and letting the current take him. We had super fun guides and often times he was goofing off with him in the back. One of the guides reminded me of Boomhauer from King of the Hill, haha!

We got to see a lot of alligators. There is one part of the bayou where the alligators congregate. Since it was a warm day, they had gotten their sun and were in the water cooling off. Kayaking is the best way to see them as you’ll see their eyes and noses floating up on the surface of the water. There were a few times we’d stop and the alligators were only a few feet away from us just relaxing. There were some baby alligators which were about three feet long and a few as long as our kayaks! The alligators don’t mind people and would go under water as we got closer to them.

It was so cool to see different kinds of birds along the banks as we cruised down the bayou. There were also lots of gar that would flop up at times. I think a few people got bumped as the gar decided to flop up out of the water. It’s pretty startling when you don’t know what hit you but we knew it wasn’t the alligators.

On our way back, we had to fight a headwind. It wasn’t awful but it did feel like I wasn’t going very far no matter how much I was paddling. It was at that point that a spider wanted to become real good friends with me. I normally don’t mind insects or bugs. However I heard one of the guides talking about how they’d spotted a spider in the area that wasn’t a “good” one and we should avoid getting bit. I didn’t hear enough of the details but once I saw the spider in my kayak, I knew I didn’t want to wait to find out. I stopped paddling and nearly tipped the kayak over while getting rid of the dang spider. It took a bit but of course by that point I was nearly separated from the group. Luckily we weren’t far from the boat house but I was definitely holding up the caboose.

Save for that last portion, Jordan and I had a blast! It was a great way to spend the morning and explore more of this awesome city around us! Even with all the sunscreen and hats, we did get a bit of a tan from our adventure. At this point, it’s kind of expected! Jordan wants to do it again so we may look into other parts of town and explore through kayaking!

Have you ever been kayaking? What would you have done if you had a spider in your kayak?