The little you know, sirrah, is revealing its true dimensions. Compared to that cake-pan of yours, a sea-kayak is indestructible. As for fish, I have an agreement established during my years as a commercial diver--I don't eat them, and they don't eat me. But that is no reflection on catching fish from one. As for landing fish, explore around here and you will see that fish of sognificant mass are often landed by kayak-fishers.

I, however, do not use mine for such cruel delights.

In my youth I graduated from small sailboats off the Maine coast to deck-hand, watch officer, and eventually skipper of vessels up to 150 feet long, the last being a fine converted triple-expansion North Sea trawler which I had the pleasure of running around the Med from Malta to Rhodes and from Corfu to the Straits of Gibraltar, cruising the Straits of Messina, crossing the Isthmus at the Corinth Canal, and eventually running her up through the lowland sea to land in Kobenhavn, where I left her.

So I think I have some perspective on your challenge. The sea-kayak is not for challenging the elements, but for harmonizing with them in reflection and a quest for a better connection to the ever-changing rhythms of the Whole. Thus, the secret in every true seaman's heart: only the sea shows the truth of change, because every instant pretends only to itself, and never pretends to false constancy. In this truth, the sailor finds the release of being one with the kaleidoscopic cross-currents of life itself, taken as he is and accepting each instant in its own wholeness, following the great lesson of the Sea.

No, the sea-kayak is a small reminder of the greater lessons learned on deep blue water, on night-watches in a gale or dawn watches in a summers sleepy haze. But it is a truthful reminder, and suitable to an older man now bound to the ways of the land.