Sea Eagle 380x Kayak Review (part 1)
I received my sea eagle 380x explorer kayak on a Saturday. Shipping was kind of slow as 380x explorer line was out of stock when I placed my order. It took about 2 1/2 weeks for the craft to arrive in the mail. I quickly unpacked everything and inventoried the equipment shown in the photo below. Unfortunately the bow bag was on back order and won’t get here for another couple of weeks.
I was totally stoked to get the kayak inflated and check it out. One thing I had wondered about was weather or not the 380x explorer kayak could actually fit in my car and sure enough the sea eagle 380x packs down to about 3′ x 2′ package and weighs a reasonable 50 lbs.
However there were a couple other issues which made me a bit nervous. Right out of the box one of the paddles was cracked. This really had me bugged out. I’ll be contacting sea eagle on Monday about a replacement paddle and will be post their response here. Sea Eagle 380x Pro Kayak Package Paddles
The other issue I had before I even got the kayak on the water is with the seats. The pro package comes with molded foam seats instead of the regular inflatable seats. Just using a one seat configuration is okay, however when both seats are placed in the kayak it’s fairly obvious that the molded foam seats were not really designed specifically for the 380x as the back seat does not strap into the kayak properly. On land this seemed to be a big deal but turned out not to be too much of an issue out on the water. None the less I’m going to see about switching the molded foam seats with the less expensive deluxe inflatable seats which look like they will strap into the boat much better.
Water Test
For my first trip in the water I decided to take the boat out on Myakka Lake in Florida. Myakka Lake proved to be a perfect place to test out the kayak for the first time and I had a blast.
It took about 30-45 minutes to go from packed kayak in the trunk of my car to paddling out on the water. Packing and unpacking is pretty simple. Waiting for the kayak to dry before packing back up took some time.
Once out on the water I found that the kayak had a considerable side to side movement (yaw in kayak lexicon). While paddling into the wind was not too difficult if the wind was coming from a side angle it could be challenging to keep the kayak moving straight as the wind would push the kayak around a bit. It was manageable though and while I really don’t have a whole lot of kayak experience to compare the sea eagle explorer against I would say that the 380x explorer handles way better and is much faster then any canoe I’ve paddled around in. I’m defiantly going to be trying out the optional stabilizer available for the 380x explorer kayak, I’m hopping that with the stabilizer attached I’ll be able to crank the paddles and get some speed without going in circles. I’m a little reluctant to take this kayak out on windy, choppy ocean waters without the optional stabilizer (but probably will).
The instruction manual mentions after the craft has been in the water for a while the cold water against the hull may cause a slight decrease in air pressure. I defiantly noticed this happening after about 40 minutes or so out on the water and it kind of had me concerned as I started to notice the loss on air pressure about the same time I noticed I was pretty much surrounded by alligators (true story – I was just drifting on the river for awhile when I noticed an alligator, then another and another…first time I've seen an alligators – it was pretty sweet and a little spooky).
I also saw a bald eagle in the same area as the alligators. I tried to take get the bald eagle in the video but it’s not really visible.