Midlifekayak

The round Britain team (Geoff, Mike and myself), spent last weekend at the Sea Kayaking Cornwall Symposium.  Fantastic couple of days meeting up with other paddlers, learning some new skills and a spot of kit envy.  If there was ever a sport designed to attract gadget obsessed men (and I believe we gadget fiends are all male) – then this is surely it.

When you start the sport you are under the misguided perception that all you need is a kayak, paddle, spraydeck and a personal flotation device.  Hell no! You can add pogies, dry suit, throw tow, safety knife, inshore flare pack, GPS, VHF Radio, woollen immersion base layers, hand pump, short tow, safety strobe, EPIRB just for starters – the list is endless and then you can always do with a spare paddle or Tilley hat (an essential item for those of us old enough to complete that middle-aged look).  Tanya is beginning to think I have a bit of a thing for the Postwoman.

Anyway I resisted the temptation at the Symposium, unlike Geoff (new paddle) and Mike (who convinced Caroline he needs a new throw tow, a Tilley hat and a new roof rack).

The three of us used the opportunity to get together before the Symposium and try the kayaks out fully laden with around 25kgs of kit.  The Explorers felt pretty good, a little sluggish but they actually sat in the conditions marginally better than when empty.  That’s pretty much what everyone we had talked to or read had said they would.  All three of us managed to execute our sculling and high brace recoveries and rolls too – great for the confidence.

At the symposium itself we decided it would make sense to do the same skills courses.  We will have precious little time to paddle together and get to know each other really well before the trip and  so we need to make to most of every opportunity.  Saturday we joined the incident management course led by Joe Shelverton – great opportunity to practice rescue and recovery techniques together. The surfing course on Sunday at Carbis Bay was affected by strong cross winds.  The paddle back to the car park turned into quite a slog against a gusting force 7.  The combination of wind and waves reflecting off the cliffs round the headland was a good test of our bracing skills.  No capsizes and lots of grins – once we had all landed safely.

One of the most valuable aspects of taking part in a course or symposium is the opportunity to learn from others.  Lunch time conversations roamed between kit (of course), macro economics and the pros and cons of the strategic defence review.  But the conversation that grabbed the most attention was stimulated by the question “how many pairs of underpants should we take round Britain?”.  I’ll spare you the details, but the answer seems to be 2 and make sure they are synthetic.  Apparently on polar expeditions they turn them inside out and back to front and can make each pair last 4 weeks!  Lovely.