We rented the (kinda cool) Hydrobikes for an hour this afternoon... Hubs, me, a teenage girl and a pre-teen boy.
It started OK. He told us not to go past the sandbar, and slid is safely in the water. Then he asked my daughter to get a 2 person hydrobike that was floating away for him and bring it in. She tried, but couldn't figure out how to grab that bike while staying on hers - and honestly, I still don't know if that is possible - did he want her to get in? fall in trying?
Eventually we left him to do his job (it was in a closed marina, so it wasn't going to go far) and we pedaled away. My 11 yr old son raced to the edge and proudly announced, "I'm at the limit!" He waited for the rest of us to catch up - my husband went to explore another area, and I was with my daughter (I had tried to help her with the request to get the floating away hydrobike). While my son waited on us, the tide slowly pulled him into the boat channel on the other side of the sand bar. Just like that we knew why we weren't supposed to be there, but weren't sure what to do about it. I raced out to try to help him... and also got stuck in the tide and before you knew it my daughter was there too! UGH. I really did not want to get out and walk in that water, but the alternative was my kids and I floating over to Assateague I think (with my son FREAKING OUT). So I jumped out - I was not wearing a bathing suit and was waist deep in the water. It took a lot of effort, but I did get both kids back to where they could pedal back into the marina, and then I followed suit.
When we finally arrived back, the two guys that were working the dock, weren't. After my daughter got herself docked and pulled her bike up onto the pad where they keep them, and my son was trying to do the same (but my daughter didn't put hers in the right place so my son didn't have room... here we go again, the blind leading the blind), the employees showed back up. They kinda fussed about my daughter's parking job (Dude, if you had been here...), and then got my son up and then they lost interest liked kids with ADHD. Eventually they realized I was there waiting to come in, too. UGH.
Not a great experience.
The bikes are cool, but need to be somewhere that the water doesn't have sandbars upon which to get stuck, and without tides/currents that will pull you into a boat lane! read more