A rare American flag kayak, custom painted for H2Outfitters.

It seems that almost every time we have a new adventure, we come away obsessed. Ever since we went birding in Galveston, Emily has had her binoculars and birding field guide close at hand. After having a pair of custom cowboy boots made in El Paso, Texas, we can never let a pair of boots go by without an inspection. Now that we've been formally introduced to the world of kayaking, we're sure that we won't rest until Murray is topped by a nice tandem Kayak.

Our obsession with boating is not a new thing for us. It wasn't so long ago that we used to prowl the docks at Marina Del Rey looking for our next sailboat. Rob once spent two days building a hydrofoil out of plywood, a couple of old water skis, and a discarded engine. You could even say we have a boating problem. But that boating problem has never extended to the world of kayaking... until now.

In some ways, kayaks seemed to us to be a fad that wouldn't last. How could it possibly make sense to propel a boat with your arms? It took a little history and some hands-on experience in a kayak to alter our perceptions. As far as fads are concerned, kayaks took Inuit hunters across the open ocean at a time when Europeans were still afraid to leave the shore.

And as H2Outfitters' Jeff and Kathy explained to us, kayaking draws power not just from the arms but from the entire body, making the double ended paddle a surprisingly efficient way to move a boat. There is a wonderful feeling of the kayak as a "second skin"; when you move, the kayak moves with you, which adds further appeal to these wonderful watercraft.

Kayaks are light, easy to maneuver, and have a long and noble past, but all of that is really just window dressing. The core of our logical argument in favor of getting a kayak is that it would look really cool on Murray's roof. And there's no way we could fit a sailboat or even a contraption on water skis onto Murray quite as nicely as a kayak.