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Welcome To The Go Sea Kayak Blog...
This Blog is A Record Of My Personal Adventures And Wonderful Kayaking Lifestyle. It Is Also A Taster Of What You Can Expect If You're Adventurous Enough To Tag Along. Why Not Get In Touch And Join One Of Go Sea Kayaks Guided Trips On The Beautiful Mediterranean Island Of Sardinia, You Won't Regret it!

Sunday 28 August 2011

In At The Deep End...

Today I decided to take Peter from the Glam Boaters to Flat Holm. Although he's a decent kayaker with a good roll it would only be his second trip on the sea.
The forecast was for North to Northwesterly F3-4 becoming F4 with a slight sea. I considered changing the route to one following the coast but I reckoned he'd be OK in this & it was calm at Penarth when we left.

 All calm to start with.

 Getting bumpier as we near our destination.
Things started to really pick up about 1 nautical mile from Flat Holm with some decent standing waves in places as the last of the ebb pushed against the wind.

Time for a rest & explore. I do my tour guide bit knowing quite a bit about the island after so many trips there.




Things were quite bumpy leaving the island & just got worse for most of the trip back.
The predicted slight sea was now a moderate sea state with swells reaching about 2 metres. The swells were messy, breaking and hitting us side on as we battled into a force 4 headwind, this ain't the introduction I had in mind for Peter.

We were drifting on the tide as Peter struggled to to keep pace so I popped him on a tow line to give some assistance though told him to keep paddling. This worked a treat as we were now up to pace.
I was pushing hard to try to pass the left side of South Cardiff Buoy, it was touch & go & I couldn't cut it too tight as Peter was on a tow.
I didn't get a chance to see if we'd make it, the line went tight, Peter was over.
Fair play to him though as he'd made a few attempts at his roll but eventually took a swim. The waves were over a metre at this point so its easy to see how his roll failed.
I did a quick X-rescue to get him back into his boat & we were back underway. We'd drifted past South Cardiff Buoy by now & still had a long hard paddle to Penarth with Peter still under tow. Despite lots of heavy breathing & burning muscles we eventually reached Penarth without further incident.
Back at Penarth you'd never know how rough it was further out? I took off the tow in the calmer water & let Peter make his way in without assistance though I think he was paddling hard under tow as the line rarely went tight.
It turned out to be quite an epic this trip & the thought was always in the back of my mind that a Pan Pan call might have to be put out but luckily Peter did great & coped well with the conditions.

We'll make a sea paddler out of him yet (LOL)...

4 comments:

  1. Taran, do the glam boaters still train at the eastern leisure center on a wednesday , i do a fair bit of sot kayaking and would love to get into sit in kayaking, but must learn to roll first, many thanks
    greg

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  2. Hey Greg, Yep every Wednesday night. 8PM if your experienced or 8:45 if your not.

    Hope that helps, Taran...

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  3. Thanks Taran, will come at 8:45, been inspired by your blogs , great place the sea .
    greg

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  4. Sounds like I might have another Guinea Pig to try & drown (LOL)...

    ReplyDelete