Archive for May, 2010
Memorial Day Camping
Every Memorial Day weekend my son and I take a camping trip to Banks Lake in Eastern Washington. It serves as an opportunity to bond with one another and offers a respite from the monotony of city life. Every year we invest in a new toy or gadget to experiment with in the great outdoors, but this year I think we have outdone ourselves.
We generally spend a good portion of the weekend casting our lines from a dock or the banks of the lake, but that is all going to change this year. While we were scouring the internet last weekend in search of a new toy for our expedition, we discovered Sea Eagle inflatable pontoon boats. Not only are the watercraft lightweight, making them ideal for our camping journey, but they are only a fraction the cost of a traditional boat. Now we will be able to troll for the bigger fish out in the middle of the lake.
What is a Catamaran?
I don’t know about you, but when I think about catamarans, I conjure up images of large watercrafts with immense sails or several rows of oarsmen. So you can imagine my amazement when I saw a website advertising inflatable catamarans. This concept seemed like a direct contradiction to everything I believed a catamaran to be, so I decided to do some research.
It turns out that a catamaran is simply a multihulled boat or ship of any size. The hulls of a catamaran are called vakas and the piece that connects the two is known as the aka. While most catamarans are of considerable proportions, the crafts are available in virtually any size and can be powered by sail, oars or an engine.