A Foldable Kayak?! Testing Out An Oru Kayak

Hello beautiful people!

I've decided that I miss having the opportunity​ to share some of my experiences with all of you, and I realized the only choice I can give myself is to reconnect with Steemit and simply get writing.

Since the last time I shared with you all (over two months ago...wow​), my family and I traveled all throughout Arizona, up into Utah, and over to Colorado to spend the holidays with some family. Just recently, we made it to our original hometown of Austin, Texas to spend a month of the winter in relatively warmer temperatures. It's been great so far to hang out​ with old friends, even though it feels like I never left in the first place!

Anyways, let's get onto the topic for today!

For this post, I wanted to highlight something that I found to be extremely fun:

The Oru Kayak.

Here I am, gently coasting along in the kayak

My mother is a blogger, which comes with quite a few awesome perks for me. Companies will send her their products in exchange for an honest review that she posts to her website. Oru Kayak did just that. We got sent the Bay model for a few weeks, which is a bit more advanced than the Beach, but less advanced than the Coast. And let me tell you, I had an absolute BLAST.

This is in no way an ad for Oru, as they are not paying me to write this. I simply wanted to share my experience with the kayak, and show how fun it truly is.

Now, what makes this kayak unique? Well, first of all, it only weighs about twenty-eight pounds, which is fantastic. But the truly unique aspect is that those twenty-eight pounds of kayak fold up into a self-containing 33" x 12" x 29" box. Think of it as an origami kayak. This allows for incredibly easy storage since you no longer have to find a spot in your garage or house to fit a twelve foot beast of a boat. How cool is that?!

Here's how it folds up (photo from orukayak.com)

When we were searching for a place to paddle the kayak on open water, we found a local state park in Northern Arizona that had a decent size lake in the middle of a wooded area. It sounded beautiful, so we headed out excitedly. Upon arrival, we found the gates to the main entrance to be locked, but we don't give up that easily. After driving around on the back roads for quite a while, we found another gate that wasn't locked. In fact, it was wide open. We figured there was no harm in trying to find lake access from this gate, considering it was technically their fault for not closing it ​if in fact that's what they meant to do.

With a spirit of tame-rebellion, we trekked around in the woods with the kayak on my back, eventually stumbling upon the calm lake. The peace that this location embodied was truly indescribable. It was like our own personal oasis, free from the hustle and bustle of the city not too far away.

Here's me trekking towards the lake, carrying the kayak on my back

We soon found a perfect launch spot, easily accessible from both land and water. After unfolding the kayak and latching everything into place (which only took us about five minutes), excitement led us to the water's edge.

My brother Aaron and I setting up the launch

I have not paddled in too many kayaks in my life, but I assure you that this one cut through the water like it was nothing, a trait that's not prevalent in too many middle-priced kayaks. I could have stayed out on the water for hours, but I still wanted to let my brother get his fair share as well.

I decided to be brave and take my phone out on the water to snap this photo

Aaron certainly had just as great a time as I did

Even though Aaron is much smaller than me, he had no trouble operating and balancing the kayak. In most cases, he was doing a better job stabilizing than I was. When you're on the water, paddling as hard as you can, it feels like you're gliding at the speed of light. It's thrilling, to say the least.

Posing for the camera, like a natural

Here's a quick POV video of me paddling out on the calm water, completely at peace.

When it was finally time to leave, we simply folded the kayak and placed it in the backpack to begin the hike out. Carrying the kayak on my back was surprisingly comfortable. It comes with hip straps that allow you to take some of the weight off of your shoulders, which is perfect for short and long walks alike.

We eventually made it back to the truck, and in my mind, I realized I would never forget this simple yet incredibly gorgeous slice of Arizona.

Here I am traversing over the rocks with the packed kayak

Thanks for reading what I have to say about the Oru Kayak Bay ST!

This marks the start of more articles to come, which will be about anything from music, to self-help, to travel and adventure as we continue our RV journey all the way up the East Coast of the U.S.

Hope you all have an amazing day, full of love and living life :-)