Sharing the salt with a newbie

 Been fishing south of here lately, last couple of days have been stellar! So today only got better maybe not fishing wise but buy another way. Showed up at the landing around 8ish this morning (sun, little wind and almost glass like-for 20 minutes anyway) with Tinker and his granddaughter(Kera the newbie). The plan was for me to launch 1st. then Kera then Kevin. All went as planned except for a small -very small- problem can't really remember what it was and Kevin got a little bit of a delay launching.  Looking over at the beach to see what was going on heard this squeal  and another squeal followed by a 3rd even more louder squeal, turned look what was going on and here his Kira with the worlds biggest smile on here face and babbling a hundred mile a minute. All I could get out of it was "now I know why you guys like to come out in the ocean". Talk about somebody taking to the water, she was a born natural otter. When we around the small jetty all I heard was "I'm in the open ocean"! Kevin made it out there and the two of them paddled around exploring the rocks, coves and the wild life aka- seal, starfishes and jellyfishes. The wind started to come up so we did  a little fishing after all that was the plan but the fish had other ideas(one small one I let go to grow bigger for next time and lots of strikes for the first hour or so then nothing* she did get a strike to- so that added to her excitement*) So decided to head back in before the wind pick up anymore and as Kira past by me she still had that big silly grin on her face and a sparkle in her eyes that only a kayaker could understand.

You've created a saltwater junkie.  I'm waiting to hear the complaints I get because her new kayak isn't a FISHING kayak...  She ran off with a spinning rod and reel, and I expect her to come back any day now to confiscate the T-11 I let her use.

Awesome! I love stories like this.

That last photo?  That's Kira hauling my kayak after she decided it was taking me way too long to get to the water and came back to hurry me along... her kayak was already at the water's edge.   

It looks like she was exercising her right to bare arms. 

It looks like she was exercising her right to bare arms. 

I knew that was coming!  She wadded-up her dry top and shoved it behind her seat while I was trying to get my act together and launch.  That top picture?  If I remember it correctly, that's me scolding her for not wearing it.  My mistake was in not adequately impressing on her to dress for 48-degree water, not for 70-degree air temperatures, and it apparently didn't even sink in when we did re-entry practice in the lake.

I'm one of the guys who stresses cold-water safety as much as anyone else does, but we can buy kids the finest books only to watch them tear out the pages and eat them.  Same thing, it seems, when buying them wetsuits and dry tops.

Maybe I'll blame the other babysitter.  I like it best when I can blame someone else...

Looks like she’s in a farmer Jane wetsuit so her core (the important parts in hypothermia) are protected.

Yeah, it's a super-stretchy 3.0mm Farmer Jane.  I didn't scold too much - she was having too much fun - but I was never more than 20 feet away from her all morning.