I sold my Malibu X-13 recently (great yak in its own right), and found a great deal on a 2005 Outback. Decided I would give peddling a try, so I went and picked it up yesterday. From what I can tell from various kayak forums, it is hard to find people who go back to paddling. The kayak itself has a great story behind it. The guy I bought it from lived in New Orleans when he bought it...only two weeks before Katrina hit. It became his only mode of transportation. He used it to shuttle a local deputy sheriff and firefighter...one of those (can't remember which) he carried three miles through the flooded city to his home. He had also been through Hurricane Ivan the year before and had MREs left over from that ordeal that he used his Outback to pass out to people in his neighborhood. Finally, at 3am one morning he heard a helicopter overhead and used his flashlight to signal them. They rescued him and his neighbor from their rooftops and he had to leave the Hobie in his home. When he finally was able to return, the Hobie was still there. A year or so later, he packed up his business and moved it to Huntsville, AL. Now he is getting ready to move his operations to Panama City Beach, FL and decided to sell the Hobie so he'd have one less thing to move.
I couldn't be happier with it and hope that the only history I add to it is to increase the number of fish it has landed. I look forward to hanging around this forum and learning as much as I can about Hobie kayaks and my Outback in particular.
Here it is:
