Inflatable Kayak For £70!? Very Happy With My Purchase

Ever since I first tried canoeing on a school trip to France I've liked it, but never had the chance to do it regularly or own my own boat until now. At the beginning of this year I moved into a new house which is close to the river that runs through my city. This played no part in me choosing the house but soon after I realised that I was close to a couple of places where it would be easy to get a boat in. My house doesn't have a great deal of storage space and the distance between it and the river is slightly too great to carry a heavy plastic boat so the idea of buying something had gone to the back of mind until recently when by chance I saw some people using an inflatable kayak.

My first reaction to the idea of owning an inflatable was one of scepticism, but I decided to have a look online nonetheless. I found one on Amazon which had fantastic reviews and only cost £70 ($100) complete with paddle and pump. Surely one this cheap would be awful!? However after watching a couple of youtube reviews made by owners who had nothing but praise for them I decided to bite the bullet and take the plunge (hopefully not literally).

When it arrived I tested it out by inflating it in my living room. It was surprisingly easy to assemble and I had the whole thing up and ready within 5 minutes. Deflating it however was slightly harder and I have only just got the hang of it. There always seems to be a little bit of air trapped somewhere. It comes with a carry bag which fits the boat, seat, pump, paddle and footrest with room to spare. You would never imagine that everything fits inside but it does and with room to spare, and only weighs about 10kg so it's quite easy to carry down to the river and back.

I tried it a couple of times by myself, and as I was nervous about using an inflatable on the river I left my phone at home and wore a life jacket, I was half expecting to fall in or for the boat to get a disastrous puncture. Surprisingly it was totally fine, not only was it stable but it was also faster than I was expecting. After hearing my praise for the inflatable bargain my buddy who also lives by the river bought one too and we went on an epic 8 hour pub crawl into the city centre where we ended up being filmed for Japanese TV!

...It was great fun but a few hours of paddling combined with cider can be tiring. I suppose it doesn't help that the kayak is made by an inflatable mattress company Zzzzz

A few days later we took the boats out again and this time headed in the opposite direction away from the city. It was more tranquil and there were a lot of scenic countryside views, there were a couple of parts that looked like we could have been in the Amazon! (maybe a slight exaggeration).

We arrived at a mill where it appeared we could not go any further, but next time we'll try to get around it, it can't be too hard! On the way back we were talking and my friend who is a known windup merchant at times was insisting that turtles lived in the river here but I didn't believe him at all and assumed he was just joking. Then literally one minute later we saw one sitting on a floating log, what a coincidence! Maybe he was joking and this was just an escaped pet? Who knows!

If you want to check out the kayak it's the Intex Challenger K1, here is an Amazon link http://amzn.to/2uQ67Mu

More kayaking adventures coming soon!