If you don't own a yacht or a sailboat, much less a fishing boat or canoe, you've probably never seen our spectacular coast from water level. If you haven't you are truly missing a viewing dimension. Taking visitors out on Stern's wharf and looking back isn't enough. Here's a simple, relatively inexpensive way to show your guests a wholly different Santa Barbara.
Judy Keim, owner/guide for Pedal & Paddle offers a half-day kayak lesson and tour of Santa Barbara coastline. Judy invited me and my son Tim to join her one recent Saturday morning. We embarked at the launch ramp in front of where the Condor whale watch trips depart.
After spending about 20 minutes detailing the safety precautions and abilities of our little PVC craft, we were ready to paddle. "If you can ride a bicycle you should be able to stay in the Kayak", she advised us. And she was right. Neither Tim nor myself came close to tipping over. After awhile it was not even a consideration.
"The nice thing about kayaking is that you don't need excess upper body strength to do well," Judy explained. "paddling is a push motion, rather than a pull motion. You use the large back muscle (trapezius) rather than the small muscles of the arm (biceps/triceps). It's the perfect activity for women", she adds.
We spent 3 hours paddling between yachts and sailboats, pulling up under the foredeck of the visiting Columbus replica Nina and gliding into the path of a flock of pelicans and terns, negotiating our way through and under Stearn's Wharf and heading towards the open sea where, one mile away, loomed the large red and white buoy serving as a sea lion sanctuary. We lingered as the heavy creatures barked and fought, swam from and leapt onto their diving platform, until slowly paddling our way back to shore. We got a workout, but nothing a reasonably fit, under-exercised human couldn't handle.
Ms. Keim also offers private bicycle tours (that's where the Pedal portion of her name comes from ) through areas including Montecito, which the ordinary tourist may never see, at the same price of $58.00 for half a day. Prices can be adjusted, she says, if you've got your own bike or kayak. Give her a call at 687-2912.