Over the last 14 years of paddling together, Geoff and I have learned so much about how our bodies and more importantly, our minds, react to the daily routine of eating, sleeping and paddling. We have developed all sorts of coping strategies for the mind and food and stretching strategies for bodies too.
But there are days on an expedition that are difficult to explain or understand. Days when your body and mind is aching and telling you you’ve gone far enough and days when you seem to want to paddle on forever. Today, very unusually for so early in an expedition we had one of the latter.
We set off from Mullion for our first significant open water crossing to Lamorna. With the help of an easterly we crossed Mounts Bay in 3.5 hours. Unfortunately we couldn’t land at the slip way at Lamorna, so after some cheese and biscuits sitting in the boats we pushed on.
The easterly wind had by now created quite a chop as we headed towards Lands End. The chop was bouncing off the cliffs and back out to sea creating clapotis. It was a bouncy ride. We had a flood tide against us but knew that when we got round the corner, the same tide would help us going north. After fighting the confused waters at Lands End where the tide splits, we enjoyed the lively ride into Sennen.
We landed in the harbour and carried the boats up the hard a little and headed for the Sennen Cove Cafe. Not one but two lunches each.
We had covered best part of 23 miles and over lunch we scanned the our various apps for a suitable spot to spend the night. We found one about 7 miles further on. Just round the corner from Pendeen. 7 miles was about right we thought especially as we were both nursing a couple of aches and pains.
30 miles would be a very decent day 2 on an expedition as we are still getting paddling fit. You can do all the training you like but when you paddle day after day after day with fully laden boats your body does adapt even more.
It is a stunning bit of coastline, with so much to see, granite cliffs, Manx Shearwaters, Guillemots, lots of Portuguese Man of War and old Cornish tin mines. This is why we sea kayak. Anyone who spends time at sea knows what a special environment it is, how you get a very different view of the world.
We pushed round the corner at Pendeen Light house expecting a short while later to find the cove we had seen on our apps. No not that one, maybe the next one, maybe the next one and so it went on. After an hour we realised that either we had missed it or maybe it wasn’t the amazing camping spot we thought it was.
The challenge we had was this is a committed stretch of coastline with no where really to get out. We could go back 3 miles to a spot we had seen earlier or we push on to St Ives. That would make it a 41 mile day.
Despite having already paddled 30 miles we pushed on. The tide was once again in our favour but we could lose the daylight if we didn’t make decent progress. We felt good, our aches and pains had disappeared, maybe the training was paying off, or maybe there was something special in that BLT bap back at Sennen.
With an amazing sunset lighting our way and illuminating the cliffs we pushed on. At 9pm we pulled into St Ives. After securing a place to sleep we moved the boats. It was a long carry and hard work probably more punishing than the 41 mile paddle. Still we were elated with our epic little Day 2.
Right I’m off to get breakfast. Have a great day all!
Midlifekayak 