Kayaks grow in popularity; paddling group grows
It’s cool and quiet at the Norwood Dam on a spring evening around 6 p.m. A half-dozen kayaks float out away from the dam, their occupants talking quietly as they drift. Two men stay closer to the launch ramp watching for latecomers. When a young woman stops her pickup at the top of the ramp, one of the men climbs out of his kayak to help her. On one side of the ramp, two lawn chairs and a small cooler are waiting unattended.
The Bella Vista Paddlers is quietly growing in number, but not in rules. It’s a group that meets every week without any dues or officers or official members. They just bring their kayaks to the appointed meeting spot and quietly paddle off.
There is a schedule that is published on a Facebook page (search Bella Vista Paddlers). It lets everyone know which Bella Vista Lake they are meeting on. It rotates through all seven lakes and, in the case of lakes Lomond and Windsor, it lists which launch will be used. They meet every Tuesday at 6 p.m. and usually paddle for about an hour before coming in to sit and talk for another hour or so. They start in March and paddle through October.
There are usually 15 to 25 people, member George Griffiths said. Sometimes there are one or two dogs.
“It’s cool,” he said, “when grandparents bring along their grandchildren.”
There are a lot of retired people in the group, Russ Turley said, but there are also young people joining in.
Kayaks, Griffiths explained, are stable on the local lakes and easy to load and unload. Members of the group help each other, but even if a kayaker is alone, he or she can still get out on the lake.
There are other trips to waterways all over the region, but they are set up by individuals. The Tuesday meeting may give them the chance to make connections with people looking to kayak further from home.
Between January and the end of April, the POA registered 2,000 kayaks, according to Carmen Dissing at Membership Services. She expects to reach about 2,700 before the year ends. In 2017, some 1,700 were registered on May 1.
Some of those new kayaks may have come from Ozark Kayak, a shop just over the Bentonville line next to Highway 71. Kegan Ward has owned the shop for three years and has seen the kayak business changing as new technology is added.
“It’s affordable to get into,” Ward said. It helps that kayaks are easy to load and unload, although for safety he usually recommends that people don’t kayak alone. Many of his
customers are brand new to kayaks. They want to get out on the POA lakes, but there are also plenty of creeks in the area that don’t require a POA membership.
The store has all kinds of kayaks as well as canoes and even stand-up paddle boards. One reason to buy from a kayak shop rather than a box store is that Ward is happy to fit his customers to the kayak that’s best for them. With McKissic Creek just behind the shop, some customers get the chance to try out their potential purchases.
Recently, many of his customers are looking for fishing kayaks which are sometimes powered by pedals. Fishing kayaks tend to be wider, so standing in one is possible and the seats are slightly elevated. There is storage space for fishing supplies and rod holders.
The shop also has kayak equipment, including some fishing equipment, life jackets and, of course, paddles.