Supposedly this was meant to be an easy, relaxing paddle to Flat Holm Island & back, but instead became a day of change, hard decisions & drama...
Setting out from Sully, our group now down to three as one paddler had family commitments & another misunderstood the meeting time.
We decided that as we were all reasonably experienced to change our route & head first to Steep Holm Island 7 miles out & then across to Flat Holm Island. Myself & Stuart have made the trip several times & Richie has been to Flat Holm a couple of times & is no novice to kayaking...
A quick roll to prepare myself...
We all have a play & a warm up before heading out. These first few images from the shore courtesy of Scott who couldn't make the paddle but is probably glad of that (LOL)...
An uneventful paddle to Steep Holm though Richie did complain of aching arms so I swapped paddles with him as mine's a lot lighter. We breifly discussed cutting the route short & heading for Flat Holm instead but Richie was happy to carry on...
We stopped briefly to paddle through the rudder as the tide was just the right height...
Nearly time for a rest & I think we all needed one by now...
Upon leaving Steep Holm things really went down for Richie, he was throwing up & not able to paddle despite giving his best. None of us had a tow rope so I tried to contact tow him as I wanted us to land on Flat Holm & deal with the situation there though he didn't have the energy to hold his bow alongside with his legs & kept drifting out.
We scratched our heads trying to think what we had available to improvise a tow just to get is the couple of miles to Flat Holm but had nothing that would work.
By now Richie was complaining of pins & needles in his hand & feet which made me nervous & I knew that I'd have to call for help.
Despite having recently passed my 'short range radio' license exam I must admit that I didn't handle the call very well. I was reluctant to class the call as a 'Mayday' which in hindsight I should have done & I didn't evan use the paraphrase of 'Pan Pan'. I made a routine call to the coastguard on channel 16 & explained our situation. I think I evan neglected to ask for help, leaving them to guess what we required.
During the call 'Cardiff Sea Safaris' were thankfully listening & in the area & came & gave Richie a lift...
That left me & Stuart waiting for the coastguard with a spare boat. As we were intending to make our own way back we couldn't afford to drift to far from Flat Holm so we improvise a short tow with the string from my GPS case. It wouldn't of worked with Richie in the boat & it did snap on the first attempt but at least we were making progress.
It got a bit hairy towing as we now had wind against tide conditions & the sea started picking up quite a bit. The coastguard soon arrive & took the empty boat from us which I'm very grateful for as it was my spare kayak & they've no obligation to rescue equipment. Top blokes!
They offered us a lift but we decided that we were more than happy to carry on despite the tide now being at full flow, about 8 knots I was later told...
Despite having to go upstream to reach Flat Holm I knew that such a large Island would have a big lee from the main flow & that was what we were heading for so that we could paddle into the shore...
Looking out from Flat Holm it didn't look to promising, the tide was ripping & there were lots of white horses & some big waves.
I knew that there was little chance of hitting Sully unless we turned against the flow & ferry glided across. We literally had to aim for Penarth to hold a course for Sully but this had us side in the the waves most of the time.
Approaching the Wolves it was clear just how fast the tide was running. There was large breaking waves rising over the Wolves to our left & we were drifting side on to the at alarming speed. We paddled hard hoping to pass the end of them but the tide was too fast & we were pulled in & having to surf & bongo slide several miles from shore.
I was preparing my roll in my head as it was looking quite likely that I may need it. A big wave passed me, I was looking up at it, then another, I looked behind & saw another one bearing down on me, I caught this one & it pushed me out of the rough water & into relative calm in comparison, I watched Stuart, waiting for him to emerge & I think he had a grin on his face (LOL), think he's getting the hang of surfing!
Passed the rough water I take a shot of the Wolves, leaning in the flow. It was quite an eye opener to see the land shooting past behind the buoy as we finally had a visual reference of how fast the tide was flowing...
We arrived back at Sully two & a half hours overdue & the causeway to Sully Island had uncovered by now.
A few call's later & we learnt that Richie was taken to the hospital for tests but was well enough to later make his way home.
I know I should of handled things better during the day, I've recently passed my 3 star sea award, foundation safety & rescue & my SRC course so I'm a little disappointed with my performance but I will learn from this.
So what did I learn from today?
*Well, firstly I must get a tow rope!!!
*I need to be more decisive as I was hesitant to admit that we needed help.
*If I could go back I would have made a 'Mayday' call & let the coastguard downgrade it if need be.
*I must work on my radio communications & also specify what help that I require.
I've heard it said that when you think you need help, that is the time to call & I couldn't agree more.
To view our route with time info click here, this map is only available for seven days. after this time please view the map below...
Hey that spot locator is good, you can see where we stopped with Richie and then started to paddle again. There's another dip where we must have stopped for the RNLI. Pretty perfect ferry glide back over to Sully too.
ReplyDeleteIf the coastguard thought it should have been a mayday they would have put it over the radio to other vessels. I don't think we did too bad a job.
Tow rope or not I don't think we would have managed that crossing hauling another boat behind us. It was fairly lumpy out there.
Well that's another unexpected adventure under our belts!