MFinn,

You didn't place a cost limit on this choice. That will have something to do with your final decision, I imagine. A lot of us have gone through the same angst that you are now experiencing. I spent a lot of time, last year researching and trying out different canoes, kayaks and pontoons. You might want to do a search here in the BB for threads about "kayak" or "canoe." There's a lot of good advice, here, and a lot of folks passionate for their choices. In fact, the Paddling board arose from some of those discussions.

I was looking to replace my canoe and was sorely tempted by a number of kayak models. However, I have a nice problem in that my wife likes to canoe even though she doesn't fish so my choices were biased. One thing I definitely wanted was a lightweight craft. I ended up with a kevlar 16' canoe that weighs in at 38 pounds. Darned expensive but I only seem to buy a canoe every 35 years so I think it will amortize out nicely. I added a middle seat to use as a solo or when my wife goes with me we have the normal seating. I think the best advice was from a number of folks---find a dealer where you can try out the boats. Joe Hyde pointed me to a local dealer where I was able to try out boats on a local lake. In fact I went back and went through the different boats on two different occasions trying to make my final decision. I bought my canoe from this dealer and I'm very happy with my choice and have no second thoughts..... hmmmm maybe I should go ahead and get a kayak as well.....

BW