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!