First time out in both the electric inflatable and the foldable kayak. The River Lea runs through our campus, is part of our living lab and therefore a space we need to access.

CBER have a couple of inflatable electric boats (Sea Pro) which are great for taking a group of students out on the water for taking water samples, doing surveys etc. It also meant we had to take our RYA powerboat exams which meant a great 2 days training at Westminster boat house last year (I will include a video from that at bottom of this post).

Whilst the electric boats are great for getting a group around they do take a half day to set-up and take down which means a full day activity. This year we also tried an Oru foldable kayak as a quicker means for getting out onto the water. The idea was that it would be small enough to carry to the location needed and easy to store back at the lab. The calm waters of River Lea were perfect for the Oru Kayak Inlet

Below are some photos from my first outing in both. We were heading out (on a rainy day) to look for outfalls into the river lea as part of citizen science project Izzy is working on and so that one of our dissertation students could identify a couple of locations to deploy sensors. First impressions of the Oru Kayak were pretty impressive.

Video below of training in 2023 for RYA Power Boat level 2