Father's Day Cruise

Spent a few hours Dad's Day afternoon exploring the South Branch of the Raritan River. This river winds its way through Clinton, falling over the dam at the Red Mill. Above the mill dam, the water is very calm and can be easily navigated by paddle.



I accessed the river via a public parking area that sits right next to the river. I plopped my kayak into the water easy as can be. I paddled down closer to the red mill and the bridge, being careful not to get too close to the dam so as to become a You Tube flick of the week. I noted a fisherman that was launching right from the museum (stone, brown building on the left looking down river). He was only about 20 feet from the lip of the dam and didn't seem to have any issue at all. Too close for a newbie like me, but maybe next time I'll get a little closer.

As you can see from this next snapshot, the river winds its way along heavily treed banks on both sides. Above the dam there is less than a half mile before I ran across another low rise dam... could've portaged over it fairly easily, but thought I would check it out from satellite photos to see if it would be worth it on the next trip. At that point, it was fairly wide, so the portage may be worth the effort next time.

Taking a different branch, I paddled for quite a while and saw lots of animals. I caught gaggles of geese, several woodchucks, many turtles (see pic), a strange looking, large bird (pic) and an otter/beaver looking thing all in their natural habitat. The twists and turns in the river kept my interest as I moved up river.

Eventually, I came into a shallow area where the surface water speed picked up considerably. I was not man enough to push beyond this, but I think that the shallows would continue for a longer stretch making paddling upstream more than a little challenging even for heartier boaters.

So I turned back and cruised my way home to the launch site. Upon arrival, I was loaded up and headed home in less than 5 minutes (5 minutes later, I was in my driveway). Was a good little trip all facilitated by my Necky Manitou, the Chevy Avalanche and my new little PVC cart. A good day.

I do think that the water is much nicer at the local Round Valley Reservoir, so that will probably be my next outing... hopfully later this week if weather holds out.


Click on the picture of the bird to get a closer look at this beast... didn't seem especially aftraid of me, and with that hooked beak, I maintained a very reasonable distance. "I don't know what the heck that is.... but get a picture of me with my arm around it!" See if you can help me identify this creature. Is it a loon? A commorant? Not sure.

My New Trolley

So here's my latest attempt at making a kayak trolley. After talking with my Dad, he shared the idea of making one small enough that it could be stored with the kayak at all times to facilitate moving it around - in the truck, on the rack, etc. Only time it would be off the trolley would be in the water. I also thought about how I could take it with me in the hatch as my brother mentioned - in case of a portage or a long walk from the truck to the launch site.

So here's my latest attempt. It is made of 1/2" PVC pipe and is similar design to my previous, larger trolley. The wheels are smaller (6" lawn mower wheels) and the overall size is smaller as you can see from the beer can next to it.

Even fully assembled, it is small enough to fit in the back hatch of my Prijon without any issue... though it doesn't leave a whole lot of space for anything else. For this reason, I thought I would try to use a pipe coupling. This coupling mounted in the middle of the one cross piece, allows the trolley to be broken in half. This should make it a little easier to store... will need to see how much structural loss there is due to this coupling or if it tends to spin at all.



Finally, I wanted to include a picture of the axle that I have used. Just a 1/2" tee with a 7/16" washer Gorilla glued to one side. Drilled a hole out the other side and used a 1/2"x4.5" hex bolt and a self-locking nylon nut. Not pretty, but it does seem to work.



I need to do some trial runs with this set-up, but I think it will work pretty well - worked around my basement floor without any problem. Not sure that I would put my $4000 fiberglass kayak on it, but if I had that kind of do-re-mi, I wouldn't be making these things out of PVC on my garage floor.

Total cost: ~$20 (40% wheels, 20% hardware, 40% PVC)

So here it is, the maiden voyage of my PVC kayak cart. Managed to make it from the basement to the driveway, which was the intended usage.

I glued many of the joints, trying to keep some of them 'loose' to allow me to disassemble it and fit it in my hatch (if I ever wanted or needed to do so). Unfortunately, the loose fittings allowed too much play and the PVC shifted and caused the cart to semi-collapse on itself during use. Not good.

So I glued up the remaining joints and now it is plenty strong. No collapsing issues any more - no fitting in the hatch either (but that isn't my main concern). I have seen other creators use special pin/clips that are available at Lowes, but they were about $4 each and not worth the cost and effort to implement for my usage.

My brother showed me an example of a tiny little cart that appears to fit further back toward the point of the kayak. It was only 5"x10", which would easily fit in most hatches and was a specifically molded unit. Very neat! I am going to think about how to create one using readily available materials (Lowe's or Home Depot).