~Swish…Swish…Swish~

I have never seen a river that I could not love. Moving water . . . has a fascinating vitality. It has power and grace and associations. It has a thousand colors and a thousand shapes, yet it follows laws so definite that the tiniest streamlet is an exact replica of a great river. — Roderick Haig-Brown

As I shared in my last post, our sim was primarily recreated in the last month. Our love of nature needed to be shared outwardly and with all, and now we have done that. I’ve enjoyed inviting people over to see the changes, showing them what we have to offer and taking them out for a paddle in a kayak!

Kayaking…, a new activity for me in SL, is truly my fave addition to our sim. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love love love the beauty of the sim most! But…for something to do and something that can be shared…kayaking rocks!

We offer the Galiko kayak rezzer in our stream. Here you can rez a kayak for one, a kayak for two and even a kayak for tinies! Now, the realism of these kayaks is just awesome. The sculpt is wonderfully done and the options are great for the rezzer system. The animation is very realistic as well. And if you listen closely (with sounds turned up), there are even sounds that will put you right into the activity -swish, swish, swish – as your paddle moves through the water.

Now all that said, getting started with the Kayak isn’t the most intuitive as there are a few things you should know. I set up a notecard giver to give quick hints, but in case you jump in and forget the notecard, the first thing to do is – click on the kayak to get your paddle (delivered to inventory) and then if the menu is gone, click on the kayak again to display the menu. There is a button that will provide a guide and the menu provides buttons to help you change the color of the kayak (all components), turn up the volume, or you can just GO FOR IT and hit !

Once you do click on , your kayak will be on the move and off the rezzer platform. You will guide your kayak using the right and left arrow keys only. The speed will drive the direction in which you float and is controlled by the up and down arrows. As soon as you click the up arrow to 1 or 2, you will start moving slowly forward. Be careful, don’t hit that rock! *wink* It will take you some time to get a feel for the guiding and how the speed impacts that. Of course, if you are in a “tight” area, you’ll keep the speed lower, and open water…well… let ‘er rip! The max speed with the up arrow is 5, but you can hit pg up and be in full velocity! The down arrow reduces the speed and if you go below 0, you will be backing up…sometimes quite necessary to get out of a hairy situation! Oh, and if you just wanna stop, hit the pg dwn key and the speed will go to 0!

On our sim, you can canoe through the river/stream and the perimeter of our main sim before heading over the sim border to our surf sim. Open water here, so enjoy dodging the waves! Beware of shallow water areas as they are tricky and present a bit of a challenge at times! Just be patient and you will find that it can be a most pleasant mode of travel…and the viewpoint is incredibly different!

Now if you have your own kayak and want to put it in the water at Sol Mañanero, just find the rez area on the beach, launch and explore! I hope you will take the time to enjoy our little world from the surface of the water…it can be a fun, funny, beautiful, calming, peaceful, challenging, enjoyable experience…all rolled up in one!