Will My Days Ever Be Normal Again?!

Well, today is Tuesday. I arrived home from my nearly month long holiday way too late last night. Today I woke up way too early for a wayward traveler at 6am, threw in a T25 video to complete, jumped in the shower, fixed some cereal and a banana (thankfully my wonderful Mr. did a little shopping for me on Sunday) jumped in the car and began the three hour sojourn to Seattle-Tacoma International to pick up the teenager's dear friend who flew all the way up here from Florida. Let me tell you, I may sleep the next three days! My internal clock is all kinds of messed up. I can say though we have had a ton of fun. I do love traveling and being busy so this really has been super fun for me. In keeping with my travels for just a little longer I am going to share a fun activity we did during our vacation....kayaking!!!

This took quite a bit of discussion because my brother and his wife had never been kayaking before. My brother is the type of guy who won't really jump into anything with out really knowing how to do it. He wanted to do a guided tour but I wanted to take the teenager and wasn't paying $100 for a guided tour. So, I convinced him to go to Anastasia Water Sports. We called 24 hours in advance to reserve two tandem kayaks. When we got there at 9:15, just 15 minutes after they opened they were ready to go. They asked us to give them a little time to get everything all set up because they open at nine which really means they get there at 9 ;)....life is a beach afterall! So, the guy gives us a little instruction (it is pretty much get in and paddle lol) and we were off. If you've never been you do get a little wet when kayaking so make sure you bring a water proof camera or a case for your camera. I wouldn't really recommend bringing a cell phone or anything like because I think it would detract form getting in touch with nature.

Anastasia Water Sports is located in Anastasia State Park off of Salt Run. Salt run is a nature preserve area so when you go out you can expect to see a lot of wild life! But, as you pull out if you are going out a low tide you'll easily be able to touch the bottom of the run. There are also lots of people out fishing and one guy was even sitting in his beach chair in the middle of the run! So, going at low tide is a great time to go if you were wanting to get out of your kayak at all. The guy who helped us load into our kayak's even said that a lot of people get out at the sandbar's and tan, swim, etc. So, as we begin to kayak there are tons of fish jumping and a lot of birds. We then came along a couple of, what we believe, are porpoises swimming and jumping because they were obviously finding some good food! I got this great picture of them swimming and even got a great video! Check those out here:

Porpoises splashing!

It was such an amazing experience I was so glad to get to share that with my kiddo! We were even able to work the tandem kayak together really well....(last time was a nightmare lol). So, we kayaked for a while it was probably a couple of miles...we did a total of two full hours! We went all the way down to the lighthouse and close to the Conch House Marina. The kiddo an I were getting tired so we didn't go the full way to the Marina but my brother & sister in law did and they said it was beautiful. The kiddo and I just sort of floated around the run, enjoyed the quiet, and just the nice bonding time. 

Have to be careful in this area as there are "rocks"...obviously lol!

I approve of this activity! Tons of fun!

All-in-all I definitely recommend Anastasia Water Sports. They have the best prices I've found in town for renting and they seem to have plenty of kayaks to go around. The people who work the desk seemed very organized and super polite.

This was my favorite activity we did on vacation I think. It was peaceful, we got a lot of sun, I got to spend time with three of my favourite people in the world, two of which I don't get to see too often. I will say though kayaking isn't necessarily for the faint of heart. It takes a lot of upper body work so I wouldn't take anyone under age 10.