We've always wanted to try out sea kayaking, and finally got our chance on Galiano Island, one of the Canadian Gulf Islands between Vancouver Island and the mainland. It was a delight, but we wouldn't have been ready for a 7-day adventure!

Our Colorado experiences have been entirely with whitewater kayaking, which is a completely different thing. It is (for us) usually a gravity sport, and can be quite dangerous. You're basically guaranteed to flip if you go in water that's interesting at all, so you *have* to know a few things about kayaking, like how to roll back up. And you *have* to have a bunch of gear, including a non-negotiable helmet and spray skirt (so your boat doesn't fill with water when the smallest wave hits).

Imagine our surprise when we rented a double kayak and basically needed no experience at all to use it. It didn't want to tip over. And the water in the islands is so incredibly calm that they wouldn't have even given us spray skirts if we hadn't asked (we never did use them... they were just along for the ride).

We paddled out, along little islands between Galiano and Salt Spring Island and enjoyed ourselves, stopping to watch and be watched by the seals and sea otters. It was all low key - anybody could do it, with no training at all. What a pleasure. And the pace we took it at was as calm as the waters we were paddling. Highly recommended.

But we did stress our elbows after two days... So we learned that if we want to go on a longer sea-kayak tour, we'll have to have our arms in kayaking shape, not just biking shape, or we'll blow out with tendonitis that will just halt a trip like that!