OK...so it's not the sea and it's not a kayak but I thought that you might be interested to see a picture of one member of the Sea for Cumbria team in training. This week I'm working in Pokhara, Nepal and as a hard-earned rest from the many meetings and tapping at my laptop I went for a paddle, with my equally hard-working colleague, on Saturday morning. Does that sound like I'm trying to stress the work thing a bit too much?

So...thats me then - on the way back from injury and sporting some short-lived facial hair. Actually, there's a concurrence of themes here. On Sunday evening I took a stroll along the streets of Pokhara and was persauded by a very charming Nepali barber that I was in need of a shave. My first encounter with a cut-throat razor, I have to recount, was a very satisfactory one. I have never been shaved so thoroughly and then - the barber no doubt sensing a compliant customer - the shave progressed to head massage, followed by shoulder, back, arm, hand, leg and foot massage. So, after not having padddled for couple of months due to a shoulder problem I know feel prepared to take to the water again, with thanks in no small part to my Nepali barber/osteopath.

Sea for Cumbria 2008! (DAY 5) (and credits)

It was Monday morning and, for me at any rate, better than most Monday mornings as I didn't have to go to work. Instead, we had the prospect of our final day's paddle of the challenge. We'd already faced up to the fact that, having lost a day, we wouldn't make our original target of Bowness on Solway and had instead decided to head for Maryport and do the final leg later in the summer over a weekend or in one long day. As we peered our of our tents, still weary from the exertions of the previous day, even Maryport seemed a long way off though. Also, the swell was bigger than it had been yesterday though we did have the advantage of an almost-tail wind.

We de-camped and hit the water with something approaching slickness and head out to sea yet again. The water felt stange and tarry, with odd currents mixed in among the swell and we all, to greater or lesser degrees, found it hard to hit our stride. As I rode a big swell around a headland, I found myself with an almost eagle-eye view of a capsizing Ian in the trough below me. As we got him rescued he told us that he'd just known from the moment he set off that he was going to be having a swim today. We all knew what he meant - some days are just like that. Despite the strange waters we made pretty good time to Workington harbour and had the treat of being intercepted by a huge shoal of fish, who turned the water into thousands of excited little peaks as they passed under our boats. Lunch was taken at the foot of a wind farm and, having completely run out of food, I had to borrow some from Jasper's plentiful stocks.

After lunch, Ian paddled out only to paddle in again as he'd forgotten to put one of his hatch covers on! Poor chap had obviously gone senile in the night - we would have to shoot him like a dog. Before long however, we were back in our stride and had our sights fixed firmly on Maryport - which loomed like a fabled paradise on the horizon. The wind was fully behind us now and it was sometimes possible to paddle fast enough to catch a bit of surf. Maryport loomed (well, it got a bit closer) and the realisation that this was the end of our 5 months of fun, amateurish and slightly disorganised preparations started to dawn on us. This is always a bittersweet time in an adventure any the only cure for the slight melancholy it brings is to start thinking of the next jape (clue: it involves sea kayaks, Ukrainian beer and the Black Sea)!

We bunched up a bit to form a group as we paddled triumphantly into the muddy morass of Maryport harbour at low tide. The water was completely still and our boats glided between the high harbour walls like crocodiles in the Zambesi. Our landing was made at the super-steep and mega-slippery lifeboat ramp and, frankly, I'm amazed that nobody broke anything trying to get out and pull their boats up it. Stuart arrived to collect us exactly on cue and, after the obligatory team photo, we were packed and ready to go home. Bosh - just like that - all finished. Well, not quite - we still had to call the coastguard and tell them that our trip was done. This job was, as ever left for Tom, our Coastguard-liaison Officer and the side of the conversation I could hear went like this:

"Liverpool Coastguard, this is kayak group call-sign 'Team Flapjack'. We are off the water, over." <> "Thank you Liverpool Coastguard. And let me tell you, you haven't heard the last of Team Flapjack. Out"

I do hope he's right :-)

Credits:

Team Flapjack and the Sea for Cumbria Challenge have been fortunate to recieve the following support:

• Trevor and Mark at UniSolutions kindly laid on our transport and Stuart very kindly drove it.
• Your Momentum provided drybags to keep our gear dry and our morale up.
• JABE Consulting provided distress flares in case we ever got, erm, distressed.
• ERP People provided pumps to keep our bottoms and legs dry.
• WaveTwo Consulting provided tow lines for the purposes of towing.
• The skilled and lovely people who make Soreen loaf heard of our endeavours and provided loaves and brightly coloured t-shirts to give us energy and lift our spirits.
• Most of all, our families provided time and space for us to practise and become less rubbish at paddling.

So, there you have it. If you were mildly entertained by any of this then come back next year. Better still, why not drop us a line (leave a comment on this post) and get involved. :-)

Sea for Cumbria 2008! (DAY 4)

The next day (Sunday, almost certainly) was much more like it and, after the groundhog-like morning of boat packing, we bade farewell to our new friends at Eskmeals and paddled out like our lives depended on it. They didn't of course, but we'd had one slow day and one zero-miles day and, in a five day trip, that's quite a bit. The sun shone and the sea remained pretty tranquil as we powered up towards Sellafield which, as landmark features go, is pretty hard to miss. Being the hardy creatures we are, we stopped on the lovely beach that separates the reprocessing plant and the remains of Windscale power station from the sea and had some lunch. The beach was empty and it was strangely peaceful, though I do wonder how quiet it would have been if we'd had a Geiger counter with us!

We set of for on the next leg (to St Bees and the promise of ice cream) and while larking about in completely flat water about 20 yards from the Sellafield shore, I managed to capsize for no good reason at all (maybe my body had a strange craving for some rare radio-isotope not found in sea water elsewhere in the world!). Anyway, with the help of some nicely honed rescue techniques on the part of the others, I was out of the water almost before I hit it - feeling a complete prat, natch.

The journey up to St Bees was great - everyone was happy to be making progress and our boats formed small, constantly changing groups as we chatted and generally got into the groove. We had even a go at swapping our paddles around and, as a result of this, discussing the various merits and demerits of smaller vs larger blades, varying degrees of feather (and how they best fit with high- and low-angle paddling styles) and the pros and cons of carbon over nylon construction. Yup, it was a veritable geek-fest! Before long we got to St Bees bay and, like so many Viking marauders, unleashed ourselves on an unsuspecting holidaying public. Well, that's not really true - actually we got to the beach and flopped down on the sand completely knackered. This time, it was Tom's turn to prostrate himself motionless on the ground, the poor chap lacking even the energy to join Pete and Mark in their quest for a cornetto (that's a cornetto each, by the way - they weren't sharing one!).

After a bit of refreshment we headed out once again, this time with a little excitement and even trepidation as it was time to navigate around the (huge) cliffs of St Bees head. Gosh, it was marvellous, I tell you - huge sandstone walls and more sea-birds of more varieties that you'd probably find in a relatively modest book about sea-birds. Everyone agreed that it was the visual highlight of the trip - even better than Sellafield. As we rounded the Northern section of the head we were all starting to flag a bit and our thoughts turned to looking for a decent place to stop and camp. As cliffs aren't widely renowned for their tent-friendly topology this was harder than expected and, before long, we were pretty close to Whitehaven and in varying stages of fatigue and/or exhaustion. After some nearly-tense discussions as we bobbed around the mouth of Whitehaven harbour, we elected (by only a slim majority) to dig deep and head just a couple more kilometres up the coast to Parton - a smaller settlement with a better chance of us finding a quiet place to camp. By the time we made landfall Tom was nearly delirious with fatigue, as evidenced by him stripping down to just his wetsuit and cavorting in the shallows like an over-excited puppy with a new ball.

The camp was a bit rudimentary - at the end of a track in a spot which looked like a favoured place d'amour for the local yoof but nobody bothered us and we settled down to a great campfire, some tall tales and some strange blackcurrant vodka of Ian's that tasted just like that mouthwash you used to get at the dentist when you were a kid (assuming you were a kid in the 70's or 80's).

We slept like the dead.

Sea for Cumbria 2008! (DAY 3)

After a night lying in our tents listening to the wild wind (and, wilder still, Ian's snoring) we got up and breakfasted with a tad less enthusiasm than one might expect from a pack of adventure-hungry paddlers. Our new friend Colin turned up as promised in his van and transported us back to our boats and kit. As soon as we got out of the van and regarded the sea it was clear to each of us that we wouldn't be paddling but, being blokes, it still took a good 30 minutes before someone finally cracked and was the first to actually say it! Once we'd decided not to paddle for the day, I took the opportunity to come down with a 24 hour flu and lay pathetically on the grass hoping for a swift end while the others put their gear away again.

Colin, who had a bit of a maritime background of his own, had waited patiently all this time and yet again spirited us away in his van and back to the campsite. By this time I was feeling truly horrible and my comrades very kindly put my tent up for me and I crawled off to bed with drugs from Ian's large stash (what exactly is Rohipnol, I wonder?) and my emergency Soreen loaf. The rest of the day must have passed (as days tend to) and I awoke feeling a bit better late in the afteroon. Everyone else was catnapping in their tents to I went to the pub for a remedial pint of lager and a chunky kit kat. One of these must have reacted with the tablets as I don't remember much else about the day except that we played cards again and Tom won.

Sea for Cumbria 2008! (DAY 2)

After a night in the luxurious tented village that we'd created in the corner of our field, we awoke refreshed and ready for a first and then, for good measure, a second breakfast before contemplating the sea on the other side of the wall (it wasn't right on the other side of the wall of course, 'cos then the wall would have been a dam, but you get the picture). Anyway, the sea looked a bit on the choppy side and, worse still, there was a stiff headwind - force 4 gusting 5-6 that wasn't going to help progress.

We spent some of the morning fashioning a new footrest for Pete's boat from an old fridge handle and a jubilee clip - he'd lost both rests during his landing spill the previous night and beachcomber-Jasper had only managed to find one of them among the shingles. We then repeated our heavy-lifting act to get the boats down to the sea and hit the waves.

As we paddled along into the wind we thought about our missing Sea for Cumbria comrades and whether anyone would notice that, of the eight people in the original team photo, only five of us were here, along with recently-adopted Pete. Wendy and Mike has decided not to paddle this year, preferring to wait until they were more expert (a sensible ploy, many would argue) and Kevin had been stricken with a lurgy which was causing him extreme fatigue and loss of balance - neither of which would have helped him much! Anyway, it would have been nice to have 9 boats rather than 6 but, on the bright side, my soreen loaves would have been even more short lived had this been the case.

The day wore like an ill-fitting raincoat as we paddled on and on toward the unmistakable silhouettes of the various facilities at Sellafield but the land didn't pass by to our right at any great speed. The wind was so stiff that, combined with the water conditions, we were making less than 1 knot despite normally being able to paddle at 4-5 times that speed. As such, we (slightly dejectedly) made landfall just South of Ravenglass at Eskmeals - just next to the famous and beautiful MOD firing range. This time it was Ian's turn to capsize near the shore following a lengthy and slightly unnerving paddle in through the swell and surf. He was fine though and he didn't even lose any footrests.

The business of finding somewhere to camp tuned out to be especially tricky as all the land was MOD owned and camping there is forbidden. However, as these things go, a nice local lady let us put our boats and gear in her garden and a friend of hers kindly volunteered to take us in his van to the nearest campsite at Waberthwaite, offering to come and pick us up the next day!

After setting up camp, it was time for us to walk up to the village for morale-boosting food and beer, with Jasper having deep fried whale and Mark teaching us various intriguing card games which all, mercifully, involved keeping you clothes on. We played until late, sitting outside in the beer garden with half a mind on the game and the other half on the wind...

Sea for Cumbria 2008! (DAY 1)

Date: 10th July, Place: Walney Island (West shore, about halfway down), Time 3.30 pm. Tom is on his mobile 'phone and the conversation begins like this: "Liverpool Coast Guard, this is kayak group call-sign Team Flapjack...". 5 minutes later we're off - paddling like 6 furies into the crashing waves and 2 minutes after that we've lost 60% of our maps and other assorted deck-mounted equipment to the merciless high seas. We don't care though, the Sea for Cumbria challenge 2008 has begun.

The first day had started about lunchtime with us all gathering at Newton Rigg campus near Penrith to meet a minibus and trailer kindly provided by Unisolutions to take us to the start point. We were driven to Walney by none other than Gretna FC manager Stuart Rome who had to be in Edinburgh that very evening for a vital meeting to secure a league place for the club. Given the significance of the meeting and the distance from Barrow-in-Furness to Edinburgh, we unloaded the van and trailer at warp speed and bade Stuart a swift farewell...

Loading the gear into our boats and carrying them down to the sea, we were reminded just how heavy a fully laden sea kayak can be, with some needing 4 people to lift them. Well, you know, a gent needs his collection of soreen loaves....

The sea really was a pretty rough (no, honest it was!) and once we'd got out through the surf we were all secretly hoping the weather would improve a bit. Anyway, undeterred, we headed North with a strong-ish tail wind and our first challenge - the unpredictable estuarine waters between Roanhead and Haverigg. As it turned out, there were no dramas although things were pretty quiet as we all concentrated on the sizeable swell chasing our tails as we paddled to our first night's camp, a modest 12km away at Silecroft. On the up-side, the heavy loading in our boats made them more stable than usual and Jasper, Tom and me had the added benefit of new super-light carbon paddles that we'd bought as a collective purchase (to the universal dismay of our wives, I daresay) the week before.

As we approached the beach at Silecroft, we had another dose of surf, but now we were paddling with it. Pete Carter, our resident-experienced-paddler and Ian hit the beach first, with Pete's boat succumbing to the surf near the shore leaving him swimming and Ian leaping around in the shallows trying to grab either Pete or his stricken craft. It all turned out okay, though Ian nearly got a fully loaded composite sea kayak in the head and Pete lost his footrests and a few flakes of gelcoat.

Once landed, we began to search for a place to camp. The local campsite was quiet (despite a sign proclaiming that it was full) but there was nobody to be found to book us in. Luckily however Jasper had been chatting to a nice local girl who kindly tracked down the farmer responsible for the nearest field to our boats and secured us permission to camp there. Even more amazingly, the farmer duly turned up to take HIS cows out of HIS field so they wouldn't trash our tents and gear in the night. Lesson 1 - Western Cumbria is seemingly full of really nice and helpful people!

We set up camp, cooked dinner (the first night is always the best as you have a seemingly huge choice of vittles to gorge on) then a couple of us went for a beer in the local hostelry before we hit that hay and fell asleep to the sound of the waves (and the intermittent rain!).

Walney 3 star

A gull's view of the Furness landscape on Sunday morning would have taken in seven long, brightly coloured objects atop car roofracks converging on Roa Island as the tide lapped at it's high point around the pillars of the coastguard boathouse. The gathering of aspirant 3 star paddlers had been awaited for some weeks - opportunity to get together as many of the Sea for Cumbria crew as possible on one training mission. This was the time to check and practice technique, safety and equipment. Nigel Dykes very kindly agreed to guide us through the BCU syllabus with a well thought out set of exercises and challenges. He skillfully and inclusively managed the six of us who had made the trip by encouraging peer (not pier) feedback and focussed reflection.

A moderate to fresh breeze made for testing conditions but all paddlers remained upright until time came for some deliberate over-turning. Kevin put in a commendable effort at self-rescue with a paddle float, got back in after a couple of wobbly moments and then, along with Jasper, nearly capsized with laughing over the action of a bilge pump. It's the simple pleasures - eh lads! Ladies sipping tea in a nearby yacht appeared a little bemused. Mark & Mike were on cheerful good form and, despite much talk of beer and pies, performance suggested tip-top condition. Ian piloted his Tempest with aplomb but in his heart I know he's an Aquanaut man! We missed Andy and Wendy (of course) - otherwise engaged in Saudi and Morocco respectively.

A zig-zag back through the yachts and buoys brought our day on the water to an end. With less than four weeks to go before the big trip the urgency of sorting out some pretty important details is working to the fore of our group's minds (hopefully!). Debrief and deliberations gave way to the the reversal of the scene witnessed some eight hours earlier as loaded roofracks headed north and east along the coast road - only this time the low water revealed the full height of the concrete support columns of the RNLI building - a gauge to the impressive tidal range.

Solway part 1 - Silloth to Bowness (and back)

Despite protestations over an early start to catch the tide, four of us made it out on Saturday 17 May. Jasper, Andy, Ian and I launched at 08:00 from the Silloth RNLI lifeboat ramp three hours before high water (HW). With cunning use of a newly acquired admiralty chart and tide tables we had worked out that we would be carried with the incoming tide up the firth, that we would stop for an early lunch at HW (however far we had got) and return to Silloth with the outgoing tide.

Our sources of local knowledge were otherwise engaged - Kevin and Mike couldn't make the trip this time - but things actually went to plan. An entertaining paddle around the sand banks gave a feel for the differences in tidal flow between the channel and the flats. Our mid-morning malt loaf stop (essential) on the sandy flats near Morricambe Bay saw us moving boats every few minutes in an attempt to keep ahead of the incoming tide. As we paddled, I amused myself and probably irritated everyone else by shouting out the ground speed reading from my GPS every few minutes - we actually raced along at 7 knots at one point albeit briefly - probably averaged 4.5 and covered about 20 Nm all in . NE force 3 meant a head wind to start but a welcome push from behind on the way back.

During lunch on the beach at Bowness-on-Solway Andy outlined his vision for a better Britain and Jasper enjoyed his sardines - I would vote for them both.

Each trip out presents opportunities for reflection - it is gradually sinking in that we need to be continually mindful of paddling as a group and of ensuring that we are all, if not in the comfort zone then, enjoying the adventure zone!

The early start had not been sooo early - in fact we all had an hours extra sleep due to the fact that I hadn't initially adjusted tide times for BST and we didn't need to be roused from slumber until after 5 a.m.! Hopefully Jasper has some photos on his James Bond wrist-mounted spy-cam - watch this space.

Oh...some more reading recommendations:

Reeds Practical Boat Owner Small Craft Almanac 2008 - lots of lovely info about tides. Go on, ask me a question about neaps in Wilhelmshaven or St. Malo.

Another favourite which seems quite pertinent to our intrepid exploits is:

The Ascent of Rum Doodle by W. E. Bowman - originally published in 1956, I think, but a classic and well worth a read. A tale of mountaineering daring do that epitomises something of the British explorer tradition. Well worth a read.

Ever onward...

Random musings post-Brighouse...

...the missing entry from Tom's list of bedtime reading is of course 'Salty Seadog and the pitless bottom', an everyday tale of a trawler skipper, a jar of olives and some copper piping. A further footnote on our glorious adventures was provided by an extremepicnicstovefaceoff on Sunday 4th May @ Ulswater. Aside from Tom and Andy having a handbag skirmish over who had the best stove and the merits of petrol over yak urine as a fuel source, we also agreed upon a shorter version of our trip as a trial for the full fat version next year. This was partly in response to the Brighouse Bay experience Andy mentions somewhere else on the blog (at which point Tom and I nod sagely as if to say 'well if we'd been there it would have been sooo different'). The precise details of this years' trip have yet to emerge from the streamy fog of Mike's creamy potato soup, but are likely to incorporate a 4 day paddle minus the tricky tidal bits at the Lancaster end of the trip.

NB: Clearly this entry could only have been written by Ian. The rest of us have been taking our tablets like good boys and girls... I'm only posting it as Nurse won't let him use the Web any more.

High Drama at Brighouse Bay!

Well folks, I did think it was all looking a bit easy and generally 'too good to be true' but our recent training session at Brighouse Bay near Kircudbright has well and truly put paid to that.

The weekend of 26/27th April held a Sea Kayaking get-together which was organised by Cumbria Canoeists and thoroughly gatecrashed by the Sea for Cumbria team (except for Ian who was at some pansy social do and Tom who was pretending to be ill so he could research kayaking books and Middle English for the previous post). Anyway, the event was a camping-orientated one so we turned up at the campsite on Friday evening in the teeth of lashing rain and pendulous clouds and huddled together for shelter under Mike's gazebo. Sadly the lack of walls and the horizontal nature of the rain made this a less comfortable prospect than you might imagine, but it did allow us to sit and chat and burn our dinners while we waited for the bar to open. Once in the bar, we met many other Sea Kayakers, most of whom were vastly more experienced than us which was humbling and slightly miffing in equal measure :-) The rest of the pre-paddle evening was spent back at Chez Mike, drinking whisky, talking nonsense and admiring the two brand new composite boats the he and his young son, Sam (pictured) had hired from Carlisle Canoes.

After a damp and lovely night's slumber, interrupted only by the friendly chirp of my car alarm going off in the wind at 4a.m. we got up and stumbled around looking for the briefing on what we were supposed to be doing. We were joined by Wendy, who had forgone the camping in favour of a proper bed, and her groovy new Lomo Renegade drysuit that made her look like the result of a horrific genetic experiment involving bananas. The briefing, given by the uber-experienced Mike Tinnion explained that the sea state way quite challenging (i.e. rough) due to the effects of the wind and that, because of this, there would be two groups - one for the more confident/experienced paddlers who would paddle out around the nearby headland and another group who would launch in a sheltered bay and explore some small islands close to the coast. Being the novices we are, we took one look at the sea and initially decided to join the advanced group until we saw that only 2 other people had gone for this option! This led to a hasty rethink and all of us except Wendy decided that the sheltered bay held a certain appeal. As such, we left Wendy with Mike Tinnion and one or two others (including Carlisle Canoe Club's own Ian Carmichael) and headed for some relaxed inshore paddling.

Down at the beach, we got our boats lined up and headed out into a slightly choppy sea for the 500 metres or so to the first island - the paddle was uneventful and took about 5 minutes - so far, so good! Here we broke up into 3 groups, with the 'Sea for Cumbria 6' (Mike, his son Sam, Jasper, Mark, Kevin and Andy) joining 2 more experienced paddlers before heading back out into the sea. Our plan was to follow the coastline and aim for a tidal gap between the coast and a small isthmus. However, the sea was quite rough with a sizeable swell and 4-5 foot waves and we soon found ourselves orientating our boats out into the sea as paddling into waves is easier and less alarming than paddling across them. Worse, we were each so busy focusing on our paddling as we crested each, increasingly large wave that we soon forgot about group cohesion and ended up more split up than the average 2 year-old Hollywood marriage.

During this mad scramble away from the coast I chanced upon Mark as we nearly collided on a breaker and he suggested that we raft up so he could get his camera out and take some 'action photos'. I have to confess that I was scared stiff by the prospect, but Mark has such a nice manner with these things that it was hard to refuse. As such, we rafted up and let the sea turn us side-on to the waves, leaving me to hang on to Mark's boat while he got busy with the camera. Just as we were packing up, I happened to glance to the right in time to see what looked like a huge wall of water rise up about 20 metres from us. We exchanged panic-stricken glances and 2 seconds later found ourselves upside down, still grimly rafted up!! Coming to the surface and free of our boats we managed to get Mark back into his craft using our lake-practised rescue method but his boat was too full of water (turns out the hatches had leaked) for him to be able to rescue me comfortably. Luckily however, we were soon joined by a serene and magnificent lady-paddler in a Feathercraft kayak who rescued me with an elegance that I will long aspire to while Mark wobbled off to find the others.

Having escorted me to dry land, my rescuer set off into the waves looking for more casualties and I sat on a rock draining litres of water from my not-so-dry dry trousers. While doing this, I noticed an upturned kayak far out in the bay only periodically visible in the swell and waves. Then another.... and another.....

The exact details of what happened out there are the preserve those who went through it, but it transpired that, while I was being rescued, 4 of the 5 of the remaining Sea for Cumbria paddlers capsized in the increasingly rough waters. Mark had 2 more incidents, managing to be rescued from one only to have his water-logged boat throw him in again. Sam spectacularly bow-stalled on a big wave and Mike and Kevin joined him in the drink as they tried to paddle to the shore with their backs to the waves. Importantly, all of these paddlers made landfall by swimming rather than paddling, so it was lucky that there was an onshore wind. Cruelly, Mike and Sam were washed up on barnacle-covered rocks, which gave Sam some nasty lacerations on his hands and arms. Also, their newly-hired boats took a real beating as they scrambled to save first themselves and then their kayaks.

By the time we all got back to the beach, we were a subdued crew indeed - even a Scotch Egg failed to do its usual cheering-up. We hadn't paddled as a cohesive group and, when it had all gone wrong, we realised that we just didn't have the experience to effect a full rescue in those conditions.

Does this mean that the Sea for Cumbria show is over? Of course not! We're still mad for it - but mad for it in a slightly sadder and wiser way. So, keep coming back to learn how we get around our Brighouse Setback.

And as for Wendy and the advanced group? Well, as fate would have it, they were just fine and missed the whole drama all together!!

A right good read...

Given that this sea kayak odyssey involves staff and friends of the University of Cumbria, a reading list is only to be expected. So, here are some suggestions based on my ever-increasing pile of bed-side reading.

Top of my list come two recent publications:

Sea Kayak - A manual for intermediate and advanced sea kayakers by Gordon Brown (2006). This well presented book includes kayaking history, boat and paddle dynamics, seamanship and navigation, safety and rescue, weather forecasting, caves, rockhopping and tidal races, expeditions and overnighting. It is highly informative and clearly draws upon a wealth of experience.

Last July, Ian and I spent a day paddling from Elgol on the Isle of Skye around Soay Island and back under the guidance of Gordon. Inspiration from that trip had significant part to play in the emergence of the idea of Sea for Cumbria. Have a look at http://www.skyakadventures.com/

Sea Kayak Navigation by Franco Ferrero. A concise manual of navigation aimed specifically at sea kayakers. I’d say that this is pretty much essential reading, particularly if you are new to coastal navigation (like me). Make sure that you get the second edition from 2007. Have a look at the Pesda Press website: http://www.pesdapress.com/product_info.php?cPath=9_13&products_id=18

Ocean Paddler is a fairly recently launched (July 2007) monthly magazine, produced in the UK, that has so far sustained a very high quality of news, technical guidance, product reviews, expedition reports and so on combined with lots of nice photos. Have a look at http://www.oceanpaddlermagazine.com/

There are a lot of good sea kayaking publications but I have been particularly impressed with these.

Cackle TV have produced a series of DVDs entitled This is the sea. I’ve seen the first one and enjoyed the collection of sea kayaking escapades from around the world. http://www.cackletv.com/this-is-the-sea.html

And te tide and te time þat tu iboren were, schal beon iblescet.

I presume you’re up to speed on Middle English prose (St. Marher, 1225 courtesy of www.phrases.org.uk) – if not then you’ll be familiar with the more contemporary form.

Anyway back to 2008 - Jasper and I were chatting the other day about how to make best use of the function on watches such as the Casio Sea-Pathfinder (nothing fancy – about twenty quid) for indicating and predicting tidal movement. By inputting data for lunitidal interval and longitudinal difference from the Greenwich Meridian these watches can be set to give a fair indication of the state of the tide. The website of the Proudman Geographic Library (PGL) (http://www.pol.ac.uk/ntslf/sharing_knowledge.php) provides the required data for a range of locations relevant to the trip such as Roa Island and Workington.

For those of you who may not be familiar with this concept: The high water lunitidal interval (or high water interval) is the time interval between the moon's transit and the next high water.

It’s the difference between moon up and the high tide immediately following moon up. Moon up is when the moon is directly over the person's longitude, not when it rises. Under ideal circumstances, the high tide and moon up time would be the same. Friction and the ocean floor cause the ocean to move at a different rate in different areas. (http://pathfinder.casio.com/support/).

On the subject of tides, the PGL website also has 28 day tidal predictions for the UK and Ireland including for Workington (http://www.pol.ac.uk/ntslf/tides/?port=0217).

The BBC give six day tidal predictions on a more localised basis and includes times and heights for high and low water for any number of ports along the coast of Cumbria (http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/coast/tides/).

There we are then – that’s possibly the anorakiest thing I’ve ever written. More to follow I’m sure. Bye for now.

How to pull....a note from Kevin

Gosh well, there was no sea kayaking by the group this weekend as everything still hurts from our Walney trip. However, 4 of us did attend the excellent Cumbria Canoeists whitewater skills days on the Lune where we were tutored in the art of being a bit less useless on fresh water.

On a totally different note, our very own Kevin has chosen to use this forum to show us his (rather innovative, in my humble opinion) sea kayak towing device.

Over to him:

"I started kayaking about 4 years ago and I bought myself a very long sea kayak, no problem you might say, but I do not drive so how do I transport it to the sea? The River Wampool runs near my house so I paddled it down the stream/river to the sea one night - it took me all night and it was mightily congested with willow trees, but I made it and had a good trip on to the Solway.

I devised a pulling system for my bike based on an American system I'd seen but at a much lower budget. Basically I attach the sea kayak to the bike by tying it onto a metal bar that slots into the bike frame, then I simply pull it behind".

As you can see from the picture, the whole concept revolves around a simple 2-wheel bogey and a tow-bar fastened to the bike. Admittedly, it isn't going to win a bicycle slalom contest but as a human-powered solution to getting your boat to the sea, we think it rules.

A quick note on the action behind the scenes this week

After the exertions of last Saturday and the circumnavigation of Walney (that means going around it with a map, Mike) it appears that the intrepid team has not given up on this paddling caper - far from it, in fact.

Thursday evening saw a quartet of aspiring ocean paddlers messing around on the River Eden with Carlisle Canoe Club behind the Sands Centre in Carlisle. Kevin (him with the paddle) had possibly the longest boat on the river and was clearly aiming to get some moving water experience in a sea kayak but without the taste of salt. Needless to say his typical composure was maintained whilst play-boaters cart-wheeled around him. Ian was doing some pretty impressive tricks that seem to involve getting the bow (front bit) of his very small kayak stuck under the water, getting sort of levered up and then flopping over and capsizing with a big splash – there’s probably a name for it. My achievements centred on capsizing several times and realising that Eskimo rolls in fast moving water are quite a different game to heated swimming pools and gentle eddies – work to be done there I think. Wendy is clearly at home on white water making difficult things look really quite easy. Earlier in the week Jasper was contemplating a paddle on Ullswater, although there have been no eye-witness accounts that he actually got that far and was last spotted ‘working at home’.

Equipment needs for the big trip have pretty much been identified and a wish list compiled. There’s been a flurry of emails about fitness testing for the Sea for Cumbria crew by colleagues within the university. Mention of an ergometer has caused ripples of excitement, and possibly worry, along with dashes for the on-line dictionary. More details to follow on that, I’m sure. Nigel has kindly offered to help the participants gain British Canoe Union 3-star Sea Kayak certification ahead of the challenge - this internationally-recognised certification is well matched to the demands of the voyage so it makes a lot of sense.

Plans are hatching for some of us to join the sea kayak gathering at Brighouse Bay on 25-27 April – opportunity for some skills development and lots of…um…networking I suppose you might call it.

It does feel like the plan is coming together.

Sunshine and Snow at Walney

Well folks, the Sea for Cumbria challenge has finally taken to the high seas. Our first bash took us around Walney Island, off the Cumbrian coast at Barrow in Furness, a 20 mile excursion that saw us exposed to all manner of weather conditions from glassy calm (pictured) to high winds and snow (not pictured as it was too rough to start messing on with photos!).

The escapees from this trip were Jasper, who had contrived to be terribly ill (a likely tale) and Wendy, who had to be in Newcastle - as you do sometimes. The rest of us turned up early at Roa Island and were again joined by Comrade Nigel, which was a nice surpirse, as well as being a big relief as some of us had never paddled in the sea before.

The first couple of miles, heading North to Barrow were a bit of an 'in at the deep end' introduction to the salty stuff, with turbulent waters caused by a combination of opposing wind and tide and the shape of the channel. Mike and I, who were both sea virgins were to be found out to the side of the group muttering things like 'oh yeah, we're still okay' and 'oh no, oh no, aaaagh, phew, aaagh' to ourselves and hoping that nobody would notice.

Out first stop, at the bridge from Barrow to Walney island, was a regular game of dodgems in boat soup as we battled to get to some dry land and pretend that none of us had been remotely perturbed by our experiences thus far. After a quick shiver on the shore, we set off again with the next stop being on a deserted beach at the North end of Walney island. With just us, a bird colony and 30kg of stuffed pasta that my wife had thoughtfully packed for my lunch ('you'll need the energy darling'...'no, I'm sure you aren't the fattest bloke in the group by far') we were all feeling a bit more 'in the zone'.

Next up, we set off around the tip of the island and, for the first time were confronted by nothing but open sea. The sand banks and winds caused the sea around to to boil up and, from time to time, we'd find outselves perched (usually at a jaunty angle) atop a big wave with only fresh air under the front half of our boats. It was truly exhilarating and, I think we'd all begun to feel the 'adventure' element of the challenge.

As we paddled South, following the West coast of the island, we were treated to alternating sunshine, rain, wind and even snow. Again time for a break, we paddled onto a beach through the surf, with Tom catching the waves just right and hitting the beach at about Mach 2. Here, Mike decided that the day had taken its toll and elected to spend the rest of it drinking beer and watching Steven Seagal movies in the pub - which was the civilised choice given the temperature of the water.

Back in the drink, Mark and Ian contrived to have a collision on top of a breaker, leaving Ian floating around like a neoprene-clad crouton. Nigel decided that this would be a good time for me to practise rescuing people but sadly I was overwhelmed with the dual challenges of staying upright in the surf and emptying Ian's kayak by hauling it over my deck and so I ended up crouton-side too. Luckily the other paddlers in the team aren't such utter muppets, so Nigel rescued Ian and Mark rescued me as we are back underway in 5 minutes flat - slick huh? :-)

The remainder of the paddle was characterised by being cold and tiring, followed by being very cold and tiring. However, just as we were on the final home run to Peil Island and the RNLI station at Roa, we were treated to an audience with the Walney Island seal colony, who swam out to meet us, their amazingly Labrador-like heads popping up between our boats as we dug deep for those last few shreds of energy.

Back on land, we met Mike who informed us that we were within an amazing 90 seconds of the rough schedule that Nigel had mapped out for the day! The day over though, it was all we could do to carry our boats back to the cars while we tried not to think about the 6 successive days of similar effort we'd need to put into the challenge itself!

Oooh missus it's freezing!

Hey groovers, just time for a quick update on our second training session - another lake-orientated-affair on Windermere. The whole team attended except Mike, who chickened out to attend his brother's wedding (a poor excuse, we thought) and Kevin who was in an exotic and far flung realm.

When we arrived at the lake, the whole business of getting the boats and ourselves ready was notably slicker than it had been the last time. I'd like to put this down to increasing team competence, but the real reason is likely to be that it was so cold.

Nigel Dykes from the University of Cumbria kindly joined us on the water and took us through some rescue moves. This mostly involved Tom jumping gamely into the water over and over again while Nigel used him as a model to demonstrate the different ways of entering your boat if you become parted from it in deep water. We then had a good old paddle, with Tom looking decidedly chilly before stopping for lunch. Stupidly, Ian and I decided to try some rolling practise before lunch and we therefore ate our soreen loaf in a near-hypothermic state!

After lunch and a beer-belly-reducing (I hope!) paddle back up the lake, we all agreed that we should try some of our new rescue moves. This started well, with us forming pairs consisting of a rescuer and a rescuee. Alas, the water was defying the laws of physics, being still liquid and yet about -15 degrees, so the whole thing got a bit out of hand. The details are too embarrassing to tell, but suffice it to say that Wendy needs to find a more ergonomic boat re-entry position and I need to learn not to squeal like a small girl when being plunged into Baltic waters :-)

Next practise session is on Satuday 5th April and this one is on the sea! About 20 miles worth too... Gosh, better stock up on pies...

Meet the Paddlers....

No heroic exploit is complete without some, erm, heroes. Sadly, they are in short supply these days having mostly been maimed by dragons in earlier times. As such, we've gone for ordinary(ish!) humans instead and here they are!

Back row (L-R):

Mark - Known for lurking around photocopiers in search of adventure, Mark is currently digging a trench from Newton Rigg Campus to the Solway Firth. When we told him that a key reason for the Challenge was to symbollically link University of Cumbria campuses, he took it all a bit literally :-)

Wendy - Leading donkey-whisperer and luminary of Carlisle Canoe Club. She's a great white water paddler and therefore posesses the nearest thing to expertise we can manage

Ian - Lecturer at the School of Forestry, but (strangely) can't tell the difference between a sycamore and a monkey-puzzle. Must be some sort of front. Ian's collection of outdoor sports equipment would fill a very large room and, in fact, it does!

Mike - Hat designer to the Stars, Mike's first love is wandering the motorways of England by lamp-light. Apparently he likes looking in the drains best. We worry.

Andy - Better known for reclining beneath motorcycles, Andy prefers soreen loaf to vitamins and has made a lifelong study of world pies. He's the only Southpaw in the group and is famous in the fleshpots of Burkina Faso.

Kevin - As you can see from the picture, Kevin is the only member of the group to have a paddle. The rest of us use teaspoons. Kevin is an Ethnomusicologist, but I'm afraid that I've no idea what this means and it isn't on Wikipedia.

Front row (L-R):

Tom - Another Forestry dude, Tom prefers Bhutan to areas that are more traditionally known for their forests. When not leaping into cold lakes, Tom scours the world for rare and exotic ingredients for his own range of high-end shampoos.

Jasper - Our squadron-leader from a sea kayaking point of view, Jasper is the only one of us who can navigate at sea - which might be useful. When not paddling, Jasper likes to go sailing and when not sailing, he likes to paddle.