Out Of The Comfort Zone

Weather was looking just a little borderline yesterday with fairly strong SW to W winds, forecast was for 4 occasionally 5, dropping to 3 later. We surmised that if we tucked right in under the North Yorkshire cliffs we would be able to achieve a nice A to B journey sheltered from the worst of the weather.

An afternoon launch from Robin Hoods Bay putting in at Boggle Hole was decided the best option to take advantage of the last few hours of the flood and hopefully find the blow dropping away. Our destination was Scarborough North Bay, a distance of just over 10Nm.

The wind was whipping over the trees and out into the bay. We hand railed it right around the bay towards Ravenscar cliffs, it soon became apparent that the wind was funnelling through the bay and so a close break in around the corner would be necessary to prevent being pushed out to sea.



The small wavelets soon began building into surf able waves. We rounded the corner expecting shelter but found the wind was somehow cycloning around the huge cliffs buffeting us with unpredictable gusts that whipped the water off the surface and into huge spray columns raising 50 feet into the air. I wasn't happy, Dave is a competent sea kayaker but my fear was for one of us to end up swimming in these conditions.



A rescue would have been difficult and we would be well out to sea once successfully completed. I was thinking about get outs but the first place along this piece of coastline is Hayburn Wyke, still a long way off.

Fortunately as we surfed/blow further along the coast the winds became more predictable and settled with just the odd bit of nasty buffeting, we made good and fast progress down passed Staintondale.



As we reached Hayburn Wyke we were both smiling again and happy to continue our journey down to Scarborough. First past Cloughton Wyke, then Long Nab.





I decided to have a play at the odd little bit of rock hopping here but soon embarrassed myself timing a certain gap wrong and ending up perched on a small outcrop, the next wave soon had me afloat again.

Before we knew it we were edging around Scalby Ness Rocks watching for the breaking surf and into North Bay Scarborough. I small and unexciting surf onto the beach and within ten minutes we were sitting drinking coffee on the front awaiting our lift. I still shudder at the unpredictability of that piece of headland in those conditions, the shear power of the wind as it hit us was immense, fortunately mainly from behind and to the side but we coped and another good learning experience - this was always going to be a one way journey....

View map of Cloughton, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England, YO13 0 on Multimap.com
Get directions to or from Cloughton, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England, YO13 0

Dad & Lad Pike Fishing in the Canoe

Having managed to persuade the lad to put the Wii remote down I dragged him down to a local lake that we have rights to paddle. Basic pike gear thrown in the van too to give a little more purpose to the day.

Chief fish spotter and head gilly doing his job



A quick chance to play in the mud while dad trys to tempt Mr Pike to take his softbait lure





No fish but great fun, for sure they will start showing as the temperatures rise

Club Paddle on the Pocklington Canal

Home late from North Wales Saturday night and then Sunday morning up early to get ready to accompany the young paddlers on a club paddle up Pocklington Canal.

My young son Anthony was excited about coming so choice of craft today had to be the open boat.



A wonderful and relaxing day with the young paddlers & other helpers.







I must teach the young lad some paddle strokes

Anglesey Revisted

Stayed at my friend George's on friday evening in Warrington, we had a great night, our George has just installed a home cinema system to threaten you local UGC/Cineworld/Odean and several beers & a number of kayaking DVDs later we had put the world to rights.

Saturday morning we shot off up to Holyhead and dropped off the kayak I trashed last week and then we travelled back down to meet Simon (Dorado) and his son George (junior) down on the slip at Menai Bridge.

We put in as the last of the flood panned out and then pushed on up through the Swellies heading up the Straits. Today I, like the rest of the lads, were paddling the Kaskazi composite fishing Sit on Tops, myself, Simon and George (senior) Kaskazi Dorados and young George a Kaskazi Marlin.

A quick mess around cutting in to what tide was left under the bridges



George at the cardinal marker



Simon at Lord Nelsons statue





Simon and young George at the entrance to the boathouse landing under Plas Newydd



and George (senior) inside



A quick pub break is always welcome



and then down to Caernarfon Castle - not been here for over 17 years and was a real treat visiting it again via the water.







A quick burger at the food van and we were ready for the slog into the stiffening breeze and remains of the tide to head homeward. The idea was to ferry glide across the tide and wind to find some lee on the far shore....it meant scrabbling across a big sandbank with barely a foot of water over it and then not finding much lee and more tide when we got there.

A lovely black and white photo taken by Simon with the three mountains of The Rivals in the background



It was a bit demanding but as we made progress the tide slackened and the wind dropped, even the sun shone for a while.



Back to the slip with just a little light left



A good paddle and a memorable day with good friends, well done to young George who hasn't done much paddling of late and another 16Nm under our belts.

Eventful Anglesey

I booked onto a BCU Four Star Leadership Award training weekend with Roger Chandler who runs Coastal Spirit over in North Wales. I had met Roger a couple of months earlier while I was attending a Navigation course and liking his manner I was keen to be coached by him.

Well I shot up to North Wales Friday evening and it was dark when I got there, I had booked into a Youth Hostel and for cheap, good accommodation it cannot be beaten. Great atmosphere, drying rooms and comfy beds, beats sleeping in vans – certainly at this time of the year anyway. I awoke to an amazing view of the Snowdonian Mountains. Breathtaking….





Met Roger and a few of the other guys on the course not too far from Menia Bridge and after a coffee and a little bit of discussion we headed off to the north east corner of Anglesey to a small cove called Port Eilian. With a bit of rock hopping on the way we headed out towards Point Lynas





It was a beautiful morning and you could be forgiven in thinking spring was most definitely here, even the sea birds seemed to be taking in the suns rays. Not a cormorant but a shag no less.





The course is aimed at giving you the skills and leadership qualities required to lead a group of reasonably experienced paddles in moderate sea conditions. It covers all sorts of rescue and awareness issues as well as testing your own personal skills in moderate tidal and wind driven seas. The course is mandatory prior to a four star assessment and identifies areas the paddler may need to improve on.



We all had great fun and took part in different types of rescues including extracting paddlers from caves, assisted rescues, self rescues including recovering over the back deck, rolling, re-entry & rolling and using paddle floats in moderate water situations. A great deal was also taught on different towing techniques too.





We also had a bit of fun messing around, here’s me out of my cockpit, turned around and then laid down over the back of the boat and my nose on the very stern.



The notorious Anglesey tides had now started to gather pace and we headed out onto one of the many tidal races on the island that produces big standing waves, great fun for surfing.

We had fun on the smaller stuff and as it built we ventured further out onto the bigger waves.





We started to catch a few big waves and was having great fun….but then disaster, I surfed straight into the side of another kayak…..oops the rotomoulded Valley Aquanaut went directly through the side of the composite Romany boat, the impact had us both into the water and out of the boats, we were well in the thick of it. Quick thinking by Roger and a few rescues later we were safely on the way back to the bay. The holed boat was towed while I came alongside to give support and two of us constantly pumped out the water. No one was hurt, the boat will repair and it was later laughed off, as Roger said, "all good learning…".





Sunday dawned much the same as the previous day, the sun was shining and it was another pleasant day on the water. This time we launched at the Northern End of Holy Island and paddled from Soldiers Point around to both North and South stack, the infamous Penryn Mawr tidal race was disappointedly given a wide birth today as a breeze had got up making it a little extreme for the course syllabus. We will be going back.

A fun day was had with further coaching in leadership and navigation, a lovely day on the water. The coastline and caves are just amazing.









Finally as the day was slowly coming to an end we re-grouped in an eddy, I was the last to get back in as I was busy playing in the tide. I suddenly realised our group had grown by two in number, and then somebody spoke aloud and said “So hands up all those who have holed boats this weekend?” It was non other than two of the UKs best known sea kayakers and producer of ‘This is The Sea’ DVDs Justine Curgenven and Barry Shaw. Totally amazing, I was buzzing….



Thanks for reading, the North Wales coast is just fantastic, just cannot wait to get back over, which will be within the next few weeks as I have a boat to repair and return – well come on, any excuse will do. Thank you Roger for an amazing course.