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We’ve had a tradition of taking on long-term project boats, but this year we are taking on…a kayak?

Yes, a kayak. A Hobie Mirage Revolution 11, a pedal powered yak that burns the Big Mac you ate rather than petroleum fuel. It may seem odd that a magazine dedicated to powerboats takes on a hardcore evaluation of a kayak, but it makes sense.

I receive all kinds of queries, requests and pleas for attention. I read them all. Mostly, my delete key gets a workout. But not always.

Late last night, this email from Adon Albanese of Industrial Shape and Form Anmore, British Columbia, hit my inbox.

We recently shot a video of the making of a boat propeller pattern that your reader may find interesting. You are more than welcome to include it on your video section of the site.

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I'm in the position of prophet, sage and wonder-boy. My job is to know everything about boats and dole that wisdom out in healthy monthly dollops. Or at least, and more realistically, I'm charged with applying what experience I do have to various and sundry boating topics that range from composite construction to the latest electronic technology to the viability of a particular boat for a particular purpose. But the fact is, there are very few "facts" when it comes to boats.

It scares me to think about where I have taken a boat in the hope of catching a fish. From the dreaded stormy waters of Lake Superior and the outer reaches of California’s offshore banks to remote bays of the Sea of Cortez and the vast Mississippi River Delta, the promise of fish has pulled me like a tracker beam far from the main channels.

Yet there’s one boating experience that stands out as the most adventurous ever. It was in waters between the Timor and Arafura seas, amid the bays and lagoons of the Cobourg Peninsula at the top of Australia’s Northern Territory.