Starting a new hobby

A few friends of mine tell me I'm rather odd in how I go about picking new hobbies. Rather than just sort of acquiring them, or knowing someone who does whatever it is, I research. I think about what I want to do (get out more, get in more, get more fit, relax, and so on and so forth) and then I start looking at what activities meet my needs. This time, I decided I wanted a hobby my sweetheart and I could learn together, that would get us outside a bit more, and would get us both more physically active. Caveats include bad knees for both of us, and the fact he has more experience doing a variety of things than I do, so finding something he'd be _learning_ was no small criteria.

So, after some study (and mind you this was back in late fall 2006 that I started looking in to it) I decided sea kayaking would be just the thing to try. It met all the criteria and would definitely be different. My sweetie liked the idea too, but then we got side-tracked with the new job offer, the moving, the settling in...

But FINALLY, after dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, my sweetie and I took our first sea kayaking lesson. It was GREAT! We went to Half Moon Bay and ended up being the only people in the class. The instructor, a gent by the name of Matt, was wonderful, and we all had a lovely time. We even had some harbor seal supervision! We learned how to move forward, backward, sideways, and in small and big circles. We learned how to rescue ourselves if and when we flip over, and how to rescue each other.

The kayaking community is a particularly friendly crowd, so I think we've managed to find another thing I was looking for out here - a group of friends not associated with work. I very much like the people I work with, but it's hard not to talk shop with them after hours.

If you have any interest in trying sea kayaking, I definitely recommend it! Get some training in first before you just go out and see what you can do - you'll be more confident and less of a danger to yourself. :-)

Next on the kayaking road to nirvana, a dry suit for my birthday! Yay for me!