First Day Out with my Eight Year Old

April 9th 2015

Weeki Wachee Springs, Florida

It was a Thursday, my youngest two kids slept as I packed up the truck. First in was the brand new kayaks we purchased the week prior, then our gear. I got myself dressed then awoke the eight year old, ushered him to get breakfast while i made his little sister milk. Today he was excited, not too much of his usual foot dragging. I also prepacked most things the night before so we weren't searching all over for a shoe or sunscreen.

Our destination? Weeki Wachee springs. 5.5 miles downstream with a return shuttle. At first thought, a bit much for a small child, but he is very athletic for his age. Always has been. Hes much tougher than my eldest child.  When he was in public school he won an award for the most laps run over the year, he also played soccer, and runs for fun. He can also swim, very important! Nowadays hes a home schooler, so taking off for a river adventure mid week is totally acceptable school work. Call it a hands on day, a field trip perhaps.

I left the little sister with a relative for the day and away we went! After a bit of driving the mermaid signs greeted us. This time I went with the rental place right there at the state park, they let you launch personal boats. I had used their services in the past, so since it was my first trip with my son, I figured the more familiar the better. Also why I chose Weeki Wachee, I am very familiar with the spring as my family took me a lot as a child and I've since been back quite a few times.

We unloaded our gear, checked in, paid our fees for our shuttle return and boat launch, grabbed a cart they had available and made our way to the water. My only complaint is how far you have to take your kayak down to the water. I ended up with a bruise and a couple scrapes from their cart and it wasn't easy trying to get two kayaks to the water with my small frame and my son being so young. But we did it! In hindsight I should've grabbed two carts but only one was available and I was determined. Lesson learned. lol! I may also look into buying one or two in the future.

I secured my gear, we sprayed on sunscreen, put on our PFDs and went the rest of the way down to the waters edge. The employees said we could get in our kayaks and they would push us off. Great! I thought, since I was a bit nervous about my son learning to launch himself there. We didn't have a place where we could run tests and trials as most websites suggest. It was basically throw him in and see if he can paddle! Maybe not the best idea but I know my son, and knew he'd be ok. Until, they pushed him off. He immediately felt the wobble of being on the water, he had lost control. Gravity felt much different now than on land just a few seconds ago. He was behind me and I could just sense it, "mom?" he said, terrified. I instructed him to paddle. He tried, oh how he tried. The current swooped in faster than he could react however. And faster than I could react, the current was sweeping me away from the launch point.

I had warned him on the way there to stay out of the trees, often the current will sweep newbies into the trees....full of spiders. Guess where the current sent him. Directly into trees FULL of spiders! I saw him start to panic. Luckily the spiders were harmless. He started rocking his little kayak trying to get away from the spiders but in complete panic. I was so afraid he was going to tip over. So I talked to him in the most calm but controlled way possible. Kind of how an emergency worker speaks to someone on the other end of a 911 call. I said it's ok, relax, I'm on my way, over and over until I got to him. My voice and instructions seemed to calm him.

I got him out of the trees, he started drifting back in the current while I fought to get myself out of the trees. Once we were both out, more spiders, so I threw the one on my yak overboard and instructed him to do the same. Ah in the clear....nope....he's back in the trees. I told him to grab onto one of the larger branches and to not let go. I swooped in next to him and dug out the tow strap I brought. Hooked the front of his kayak to the side of mine so I could release him if necessary. I then instructed him to push off the trees and I did the same. I paddled us back out into the middle of the river.

Here's us finally on our way!

Here was the view ahead of me. Absolutely gorgeous.

Whew! What a start! That's when I began to think, he's never going to make it. I'm a horrible parent, what have I done? What have I gotten us into? It's going to be a LONG day! Thankfully those negative thoughts were short lived.

While I paddled in front of him, he was watching, and practicing behind me. We passed some swimmers and I informed him we would stop soon to swim and work with him with his kayak. He was so excited! Soon we found a sandbar around a bend that was a great swimming spot! I quickly paddled in to the sand bar, jumped off my kayak and secured his. He jumped right into the freezing cold water and I wadded around cooling off my feet. After a few minutes he of course wanted to try out the "see how far the kayak will lean before tipping over" controlled test. I wish I would have taken photos! He had a blast and wow, those youth kayaks are very, very stable. He really had to put effort into tipping his kayak. I thought he would tip it once and say ok, got it. Nope, he did four or five tests. As mentioned he had a lot of fun with it!

Next up was re-enter your kayak from the water. This, he definitely had trouble with. He made it in about twice out of a possible ten or so attempts. We need to work on this for sure before going out on larger bodies of water. In this river you can rather easily swim to shore or a sandbar. Last he wanted to try to test this current I spoke of. He put on his life jacket and jumped out into deeper water where he couldn't reach the ground and attempted to swim against it. Wasn't happening. He managed to stay in one place though. He quickly wore out and I grabbed him up and out of the current.

Finally his last mission was he wanted to practice paddling all on his own, even against the current. Ok I said, but attached a longer rope I had purchased to the back of his kayak and held on. I believe the rope was about twenty feet long so he had some freedom, but I could also reel him back in when other boats came through to help get him out of their way. He paddled around for a little while until he wanted to leave our new found little swim area. I guess he felt he graduated. And he wanted to paddle all on his own. I must have asked "are you sure???" ten times. I couldn't help it. I'll blame it on the mom thing. Then once I accepted his new confidence I reassured him that I can attach his yak back to mine anytime he wants! I left the tow strap attached to the front of his boat. (Later this came in handy)

Just as we were about to leave the sandbar and continue down river, a guy, probably in his 20's with a group of others got taken into a tree by the current. It caught him off guard and he flipped his kayak. When he came up from the water he also had a red mark on his face. I'm not sure if it was from the tree, the kayak, or possibly his paddle. He tried to swim back to his kayak but it wasn't happening. He too wasn't strong enough to fight against the current. He clung onto his life jacket and one of his friends went to get his kayak that was still upside down and stuck in the tree while the others let him eventually hold onto their kayaks. You actually see this a lot at weeki wachee. Typically not as bad as this accident. But because it's an easy river and there are I believe three kayak/canoe rental places putting boats on the water, you have a lot of inexperienced paddlers. Like us. lol! I'm not all that experienced, this was my first day out with this new kayak, my second time paddling a kayak in my life. However, I did have experience on my fathers boat growing up, and on canoes. I'm a Florida native. I grew up on the water. So I'm maybe somewhere in the middle of newbie and intermediate. However my paddling stroke this day was bad....more on that later.

Once I saw the guy was ok, they had collected all that was lost in the wreck, (I couldn't leave my son to help but my good nature wouldn't allow me to just leave either if there was something I could have done) my son and I continued. He was paddling all on his own now and wow, kids are fast learners! He was doing amazing, we were even racing. That little yak can move!


We enjoyed the scenery and little bits of wildlife, I pointed out different kinds of fish, pointed out the silence of the river, and how calm everything is away from the city. Soon enough we came upon another spot we stopped at. I ate, he wanted to jump off a platform built by locals perhaps. He went past the older kids and just jumped as high as he could. Something I was too scared to do at his age. I swear he is fearless. Not long after a few jumps he was ready to move on. Maybe I should mention he has ADHD. I still felt the need to rest, but we continued on anyway. I towed him off and on as he needed a break.

The Fearless Jump

Back to the platform

Kayaks tied up so the current wouldn't sweep them away.
(Bungee strap with clips on both ends worked well.)

I pointed out mile markers and how many miles we had gone and had left every time we saw one. We searched for manatees. Though we didn't see any. Maybe next time. He questioned all the signs we saw. We stopped once more, he refused to eat all day, he was in a race against himself to get to the end. He didn't realize it was a marathon. My son also got a thrill from the few motor boats that passed, even though it's a no wake zone, the boats still give off a bit of a wave. He giggled and tried to hit all the waves with his kayak.

Quite a while after I guessed it would happen, I finally heard it. "mom, I'm too tired, I can't do it anymore" I was tired as well since he wouldn't let me rest, I was trying to keep him from getting bored, so I pushed myself beyond my limits already. We were also under a time constraint. We got on the water at about 11am or noon, not sure, it was a three hour paddle with no stops for I figure experienced paddlers in good shape.

We needed to be at the shuttle point by a certain time. So no stopping now, it was already past 3pm. He was also getting cranky. A lot of people had commented earlier about how well he was doing, surprised it was his first day out, saying how cute his kayak was at a mere six feet long. The last woman who commented didn't receive my son's usual smile and kind "thank you", just a look of exhaustion. Poor kid. I again started thinking I'm a bad mom. With only about a half of a mile to go, suddenly the current just wasn't moving us like before. I struggled to tow him behind me. I let him play with the camera for a while and relax to at least give him a break.

He doesn't look so tired there lol! Still in good spirits.

Then I finally had to tell him look I'm sorry but you have to help paddle. And he did. I thought we'd never make it. All the other paddlers had disappeared. It was just us, in the residential area. Both of us struggling. Where's the current when you need it? lol! I was just too tired. I didn't listen to my body. I unhooked the tow strap and rested for a minute. Snapped one last photo of my trooper.

Nearing the end of our journey

We slowly reached the final bend, where I saw our ending point. I quickly turned to my son and said "There it is! We are SOO close! Let's go!" Hoping to motivate him and give him one last internal push. It worked. He grunted, he struggled, but he did it! The employees of the company we used  quickly grabbed us out of our kayaks, carried our kayaks up the ramp for us, told me to unload anything that may blow off, and we grabbed the last two seats in the van transporting everyone back to their vehicles. Although I felt rushed, the driver thanked everyone else for their patience. Besides a guy asking about how many boats they put on the water, the ride was pretty quiet. I assume everyone was fairly tired after a day in the sun. If you're curious though, the driver said that between the three kayak rental places and private boats that there is about 400 boats on that river at any time. Another reason I picked this river was I knew that, it's a busy river. There would be people to help if we ran into trouble.

It wasn't a long drive back to our vehicles. The driver unloaded our kayaks and noticed how small we both were and said he would be back to help us load them. At this point I was happy to hear it because as mentioned, I apparently wasn't paddling right. I was more using my arms and towing, using twice the energy. (I felt it for 3 days after too, needless to say I've been working on training my body for the forward paddling stroke on land since)

My son helped me load up the truck, the ride back seemed shorter somehow, we enjoyed the a/c, we were excited, high fives over an accomplished day, and then my son rested his head and tried to sleep. lol! He's not really one to nap either.

When I returned to pickup my littlest I had a huge smile on my face. I couldn't wait to share the details of our trip that seemed like such a failure at first yet turned into one of the best days my son and I had in quite a while. My son said he can't wait to go again and wants to take his kayak out to the beach for some surf action. I'm not sure if that's legal, or how, or where...so I will continue to research that. First for sure, we will try some more lakes and rivers. lol!

So from my first experience/Tips 

Yes, some kids can handle their own kayaks in short bursts and learn quickly.

Bring a tow strap of some sort.

Don't expect too much too quickly.

Listen to your body when it says to slow down or rest.

Pick a place you know, then you can focus more on your child rather than "where are we? are we going the right way? etc"

I picked clear water, then at least we could see obstacles, dangers, fish, alligators (didn't see gators thankfully this time but have in the past) etc.

I considered a tandem kayak or canoe but my son's athletic abilities convinced me he was capable of his own. He also isn't going with me on every trip. And due to finances, I did what I could with what we had.

If you want to make the best of a learning experience out of it, research the wildlife, area, history, etc beforehand with or without the child and then bring up the lessons on the trip. For my son it's easier to explain the dangers before and then the interesting facts when he can see it up close.

And as always, everyone should wear their life jackets/PFDs at all times! (I need to get better with this I'll admit, BUT with that said, if it is just my child and I on the water, no other help around, you will find I do have it on)