Dock Street Marina Kayaks

If you’ve ever found yourself wanting to break the banal minutia of deciding which fast food place you will go to on your hour long break, might I suggest an option a bit more quixotic? Cross the street like you’re going to the museum, keep going past the Chihuly glass blown bridge, walk down the stairs to the marina and you will find a life aquatic! Sailboats, old tug boats, nautically themed bars, and a kiosk where you can rent kayaks by the hour. $20 gets you an hour, and it’s $5 an hour after that.

After you say goodbye to dry land, you will find yourself having to decide between going left or right. I would suggest venturing left as far as your scholarly muscles will allow, then heading back, taking a little detour under the mighty cable bridge many of us see on our way to school each day. Traversing under and through such structures truly create quite the juxtaposition of nature vs. manmade innovation, which surprisingly go quite well together.

If you’ve never kayaked before, the Foss Waterway is a great place to start. Unless you’re built like Thor, you probably won’t make it out of the safety of the harbor, as the water’s calm can be quite fickle. Fret not though, as you will find yourself gazing endlessly at the many crassly-named sea vessels moored at the harbor.

You’ve got the equally elegantly and endearingly named vessels like The Angelique to the kitschy Salty Dog’ and Ms. B. Have.

There is a genuinely interesting nautical culture down at Dock Street Marina, and The Ledger can certainly recommend seeing it by kayak.

Dock Street Marina is open daily from 8:30 a.m. to dusk. For more information, check out http://www.dockstreetmarina.com/