This is a 17-minute bird’s-eye view of kayaking the (approximately) 1-mile around Flathead Lake’s Cedar Island.

We like to kayak in shallow, calm water where we can see the rock formations below us — particularly in Montana’s crystal, clear Flathead Lake. It is amazing what fascinating colors and rock formations our “follow me” drone revealed.

You can enlarge this video and crank its resolution up to 2k if you have the screen for it (two icons lower right).

If 17-minutes is too long, here is a shorter, similar video: https://www.spetz.com/morningguyblog/2025/08/28/kayak-shallow/

One of the many beauties of a kayak is its ability to navigate thin water. This is far more interesting than paddling out in the middle of a lake (an unfortunate all-too-often practice of kayak renters in our little tourist town). And, if the shallow water is clear, like Montana’s Flathead Lake, you have a rocky show below as you glide along.

This time, Marlene and I took along our drone and we were amazed by what it captured. We also learned that kayak-drone takeoffs are easy (but landings not so much 😬 .) Nevertheless, with some luck, we have so far kept the quad-copter dry.

IMHO, when you want the best kayak experience, paddle shallow.