FOR SALE

Item: One sea kayak, single-seat, with paddle and spray skirt included.

Condition: Good. Sound hull, no cracks, no soft spots. Sun has faded the deck a little and there is one scuff at the bow from a rock I would rather forget. It has been kept dry and turned over in the barn every winter. It does what a kayak should do and does not take on a drop.

Price: Forty gold, or a fair trade. I will listen to reasonable offers and I will listen harder to anyone offering good seasoned firewood or a decent goat.

I farm the thin acres out toward the Harrowmere shore, and I bought this years back to run the coast on calm mornings before the day’s work. It carried me out and it always carried me back. I am getting on now, and my knees have opinions about cold water, and the truth is I have not put it in since the spring. It should be out on the water under somebody, not upside down in my barn gathering swallows.

Provenance is clean, before anyone asks. I bought it new from the boatwright at the old harbor, I am the only one who has ever paddled it, and there is nothing strange about it whatsoever, which around here is worth saying plainly.

Come see it in daylight. I will help you strap it to a cart. Owl me and I will send the way out.