Happy Birthday Sharlene

Any clues as to what you'd like for your birthday?.............(no hints were dropped over the last month or so)

O.k. Chester you're going to have to fly by the seat of your pants on this one (all the boys know what I'm talking about here.)

Here it goes.............we're going to hire a couple of Think Kayaks surf skis from Fergs Kayaks....then we'll have some lunch....then go for a bike ride on the cruiser bikes that Fergs hire as well.
We headed off at 9.30 am it was looking pretty breezy on the waterfront so luckily I'm a trusted person with the Think surf skis and Dave Annear allowed me to

take the skis around to Hataitai Beach. We had a good paddle around in the relative shelter there, first I had Sharlene on the more stable Think big eze (56cm wide and 5.6 metres long) then for the last stint she had a crack on the eze (51cm wide and 5.2 metres long)

Both skis are great for beginners with the Big Eze being the most stable even though the seat is a bit higher.

Sharlene found the eze good to paddle, though slightly narrower it has a deeper seat than the big eze which meant the stability was not too much different.

A bit of extra work was required to get the skis around to Hataitai and then wash them down with fresh water after use ready to take back to

Fergs again but the extra effort was well worth it.

After we placed the skis back at Fergs, Sharlene said "How about we go and have a look at the Crab Shack" which is only 50 metres from Fergs we did more than look, we consumed and had some well earned food on board ready for our next activity.

The cruiser bikes were great, we were both sitting up like Jackie on these bikes with a spin up to the cruise boats on the Centreport Wharves then back past Fergs and around to Oriental Parade then back to park the bikes up at Fergs Kayaks again.

In the end we hired the skis for 1 hour and the bikes for 1 hour just under $200............sounds expensive? well not really.... you're not having to buy them or any of the equipment like paddle, leg leash and PFD so it's bargain really.

I recommend taking your wife/partner down to hire the above (or kids that can handle the above gear.) If the weather's not too flash you can hire roller blades or use the climbing wall.............and when you find that you're a frequent hirer maybe then look
at buying your own gear.

Well big day out today, just packing our gear up again to head over to the Whareama River in the Wairarapa tomorrow surf ski for me and SUP for Sharlene, will report back on that one in the next few days.
click on any photo to enlarge