Midlifekayak

Great last couple of days. Good progress despite tougher conditions. Full write up coming soon but poor signal where we are.

Hope to turn north over the weekend.

437 miles so far.

Happy Birthday Tanya xx

Everyday on these expeditions is an adventure and a roller coaster of emotions.

Last night we slept (or didn’t in my case) on the harbour wall in Ardmore next to our kayaks. Through our bivi bags we could still feel the sun’s warmth that had been retained in the concrete. By morning that warmth had gone and we both wrapped more and more layers over ourselves until it was time to get up.

The sun was up and already shining on half of the slipway. Perfect opportunity to allow us to lay out all our kit and dry it before packing away.

I was just climbing out of my bivi when we heard someone shout from the road above “Do you want tea?”.

We both stuck our thumbs up and nodded enthusiastically.

Next thing we know, the kind offer of tea had escalated into showers followed by a two course breakfast.

Jackie, is a top class swimming coach from Loughton in east London but married an Irish fisherman from Ardmore over 40 years ago. Over the next hour or so, as Jackie rustled up an amazing breakfast, we heard all about her amazing family and her career and learned more about life in Ardmore.

It is spontaneous experiences of human generosity like Jackie showed to us this morning, that make expeditions so special. Geoff and I won’t remember all the miles we paddled but we will remember all the encounters with wonderful people along the way.

On the water only 5 mins and we met the local lobster fisherman Michael and his dog Oscar. I had to take some photos so we stopped and chatted. Apparently Oscar is famous because he ‘befriended’ the walrus that visited southern Ireland a few years back.

From the highlight of meeting two incredible people (and a dog) we then got on with the paddling. Two long open crossings ahead of us, one straight after the other. Knockadoon Head followed by Ballycotton. Although we had the morning tide against us we did have an easterly wind for assistance, but open crossings can be a drag. It is much more fun paddling alongside cliffs. There is more to see and distract yourself from the miles. This coastline is stunning.

When sessions drag on, it is easy for the mind to start questioning why on earth we are doing this trip. Sometimes if you allow yourself the chance to think about the enormity of it all it can be quite intimidating.

Still, the miles clicked down and with about 16 miles we pulled into Ballycotton. The aim was to have a break, stretch the legs and get some provisions. Unfortunately no shop. The local store had closed down a few years ago.

Geoff and I stayed in Ballycotton on the way round Ireland in 2015 but couldn’t remember it until we saw the lifeboat station. We recognised the steep steps and the concrete platform on which we had had a cold wet bivi. Fond memories (Ha!)

The lifeboat mechanic and coxswain were at the RNLI Station, so we popped in to blag some water and asked about getting provisions. It didn’t look like we were going to get any for a few days. That would be a problem but the great Wild Atlantic Warrior, Jon Hynes who lives up in Kinsale had already been in touch.

Jon and his mate, Sean Cahill, paddled round Ireland the same year as we did and in a cracking time. Jon and his lovely family were so generous and put us up for the night when we got to Kinsale and washed kit and fed us.

I rang Jon. Great to hear his voice. Always positive and upbeat. We would get to Kinsale Old Quay tomorrow at lunchtime and his daughter Aoife would pick us up and take us to the local store.

Jon, who is a very experienced sea kayaking and outdoor instructor then said, “you boys are making great progress, but you need to push round Mizen before Saturday”

The weather that has blessed us so far is changing. Mizen marks the start of the West Coast and is a formidable place in bad weather. Getting round Mizen and up to Dursey Island whilst the weather is fair would be key.

Back on the water we pushed on. We now had tide and wind in our favour. We had planned on getting to Gyleen, but when we rounded Powerhead, we felt good and decided to push on another 7 miles to Roberts Cove.

As the sun was starting to set we crossed Cork Harbour, avoiding the shipping. The romantic in me reflecting on my ancestors who were from Cork. I wondered if they had ever seen the bay and the harbour from a boat this far out and seen how beautiful it looks.

As we got close to Robert’s Cove there was an air of anticipation as we didn’t know whether we could land there. And if we could, was there somewhere to sleep.

The Cove faces south east and we were paddling due west so it wasn’t until the last minute that it revealed itself. It wasn’t just a safe haven it was a little bit of Irish paradise.

Geoff and I recognised it instantly. We had stopped here before for lunch last time, and it was here we spotted a basking shark.

We made a lentil curry and pitched our tents on a patch of grass. Perfect.

The plan for the next few days is to push on and get to Baltimore by Wednesday to give us a chance to start heading north round Mizen on Thursday and Friday before the weather changes.

The infamous West Coast is almost upon us.

Slow start to the day after the Irish Sea Crossing. It had rained heavily over night and all our kit was soaked and covered in sand. The Bay was covered in thick mist, so we made a brew, had some breakfast and allowed the sun to burn through. When it finally did we managed to get the kit a bit drier before we packed up and got on the water.

Just 12 miles along the south coast to Kilmore Quay. A recovery day.

We had a stunning bivi spot that night and one of the best nights sleeps we have had.

The next day we pushed on toward Tramore, some 26 miles. It was a bit of a slog but pleased we covered the miles.

9 years ago when we paddled round Ireland, we pulled into Tramore harbour on our second night. There, we had a chance meeting with the kayak legend that is Mick O’Meara. Mick holds a range of kayaking records including the fastest circumnavigation of Ireland – 23 days. A humble man, but a real endurance athlete. On that expedition, Geoff and I were to get the chance to paddle together with Mick in some rather enormous seas off the west coast a few weeks later. It was a day that Geoff and I still talk about.

As we paddled into the harbour again on our latest adventure, we did joke that perhaps we would see Mick belting up and down the bay in his kayak.

We headed into town for dinner and our first Guinness since landing in Ireland.

As we arrived back in the harbour there was a lone kayaker just returning to shore. It was Mick. So good to catch up with the big fella and hear his news.

Today, Day 17, was “effing hard work” according to Geoff. I concur. Beautiful day, but very warm and still. Which can just make kayaking tough going. We managed 30 miles in a oner though and now find ourselves making camp on the harbour wall in Ardmore.

As we were bedding down for the night, a local chap came down from his house to speak with us. He is 3rd or 4th generation Ardmore. He has sailed to and visited most of the small islands off the Irish coastline and gave us some tips for places to visit and stay over the coming weeks.

Thank you for all the good wishes and for your donations to our charities. We will say a little more about why we chose the charities in a blog soon.

We also hope to share some photos and videos of us actually on the water, rather than on harbour walls!

Setting up camp in Ardmore

4.38am, launch, 13 hours 50 mins later and 52 miles we are in Ireland! Woohoo!

Puffins, Shearwaters, Turns, Seals, Dolphins, Porpoise, Guillemots, Gannets, Stenna Link Ferries, we had the lot.

Longer version to come but in summary a great day. Elated to complete this bit of our expedition. Might be a slower start tomorrow.

The story of the big one. This was the crossing that made us apprehensive when we were planning the expedition. Sure there are plenty of challenging tidal conditions and crossings around Britain and Ireland. We know there will be days when we are seriously challenged by conditions that weren’t forecast, but the George’s Channel would be the longest and most committed crossing the pair of us had ever undertaken.

We made the most of our cafe days in St David’s to study the weather reports and make plans for our Irish Sea Crossing. Thursday (today) was looking “ok” for the crossing but not ideal, but if we didn’t attempt it then we couldn’t see another window opening up for us over the next week.

As the weather models updated through the day on Wednesday, not all of them agreed with each other but there was enough consistency to reassure ourselves we could cope, even if we got the worse end of the forecast.

Decision made, we hurried back into St David’s to get provisions for the crossing. Geoff made enough cheese and tomato sandwiches to last us about two weeks let alone the Irish Sea crossing, and to that we added: dates, carbohydrate gels, nuts, flapjacks and some chocolate bars. We would also carry around 6 litres of water each.

We had prepared a detailed plan taking into account the winds and tidal streams. We calculated our vectors and headings. We also had waypoints plugged into our GPS handhelds.

I called Milford Haven Coastguard to let them know of our plans. “Blimey” was the response from the very friendly chap on duty. ‘Routine’ passage info shared, he wished us the best for our trip.

It was going to be an early start so we packed as much as we could the night before. Alarms set for 3am, neither of us really slept. We packed the tents away and carried our kit down to the boats that we had left by beach. We shovelled breakfast down, carried the boats down to the water and packed the last of our gear. We launched through the surf at 4.40am.

It was slack water and so no danger of us getting pushed by the strong tide into the Bitches that we had had so much fun in a few days earlier. It was a chilly start to the morning but after hauling the kayaks down the beach we were already feeling too warm with our cags on. We agreed we would take them off at our first break.

There was a red glow on the horizon over our right shoulder, and soon we could see the sun starting to rise.

The first Shearwaters and Puffins started to appear from their burrows soon after as they started their morning fishing trips. A solitary porpoise broached the surface in front of us, too intent on feeding than to notice us.

We were on a heading of roughly 295 degrees, although it is impossible to steer accurately on a kayak so our course would be anything from 280 to 310. Our GPS would indicate our course over ground and whether we were shaping the most efficient route.

And so we settled into a pattern of paddling 5 miles, break for 5 minutes for a pee, bite to eat and drink, and paddle on. That’s 9 stops. We counted them down.

Long paddles are all a head game. Yes the body gets sore and uncomfortable but the biggest challenge is how you feel about it all. So we look for any positive on the way, like moving from being in the 40s to go, to being in the 30s to go. Or we’d note that we were 20% there already.

Our speed changed with the changes in stream and wind throughout the day. The best we got was early 5s (5.1 to 5.3 mph) to low 3s. Doesn’t sound like much difference but it’s the difference to your breaks coming every hour or every hour and a half.

The middle 10 and the last 5 miles were the hardest.

Backsides and backs ached and tendons in our wrists and arms were sore.

So we did anything to distract ourselves. We told stories, we sang songs (badly), and slowly the miles ticked away.

But the best distractions were provided by some amazing encounters with wildlife. We saw several pods of Dolphins, some of which were incredibly playful and came in very close to check us out. They broached and looked at us, dived just under our boats and circled us for what seemed like ages.

Shearwaters and Gannets in particular seemed to come in close to see what we were doing.

We had the odd seal encounter and wonderful sightings of Puffins, Guillemots, Razor Bills, Fulmers and Turns.

It’s such a privilege to be in this environment, completely out of sight of land, and be surrounded by such beauty (and I don’t mean Geoff!).

We were paddling on a compass bearing, hoping that we might see land about 10 miles out. But nothing. Wexford was shrouded in mist.

Then after paddling for 12 hours we got our first sign we were definitely on course. We saw the lighthouse on Tuskar Rock appear through the mist. We had planned to be south of Tuskar Rock and the strong tidal streams that run north of it. Sigh of relief.

Shortly after we heard the throbbing engines of a Stenna Link Ferry. We could just make out the shape of the ferry in the poor visibility. It wasn’t clear which way it was headed. We assumed it was aiming for Rosslare which was north of us. We carried on paddling but kept an eye on it.

About 20 mins later it became apparent the ferry had actually just left Rosslare. We obviously couldn’t see that as it was shrouded in mist. Question now was what was its destination. If Fishguard, we knew we could carry on paddling safely, but if Cherbourg, then we had a problem.

Guess what, it was the latter, and the ferry was heading straight for us. We did the sensible thing and waved our paddles in an attempt to remind the Captain ‘paddle over power’. Just kidding, we actually did the only thing you can do in these situations and that was to about turn and start paddling in the opposite direction. So only 4 miles from our destination, we found ourselves paddling back in the direction of Wales. We halted when we could see we had give the ferry enough room and we watched the crew on the bridge in their pressed white shirts stare at us out of the window. Heaven knows what they were thinking.

The last 4 miles seemed to take an eternity but we knew we had done it. We landed at Carne Beach (what a coincidence!) and we have to confess it took us a little while to climb out of our boats.

Then we were quickly reminded of why we love paddling in Ireland so much – the friendliness of strangers. As we made camp we spent a good couple of hours chatting to the local fisherman and hearing their stories.

Job done.

Tough choice this morning, paddle in F7 gusting F9 and pouring rain, or a full Welsh Breakfast in St Davids.

So writing this as we tuck into our second breakfast…..

We are well used to being weather bound on these expeditions. We have been blessed with fine conditions over the first 9 days and we have made the most of it to get in position to make the crossing to Rosslare.

Before we set off we gave ourselves a couple of weeks to get here so we could make the crossing on neap tides when the stream through the George’s Channel would be at a minimum. We have arrived ahead of schedule, and although the weather has turned, we will make the most of the opportunity to recuperate and be ready for our biggest challenge of the whole expedition.

Our list of minor ailments so far:

– A few blisters (of course)

– A little bit of sunburn

and

– With all the beans and lentils we are eating, chronic flatulence

(Too much information?)

For the 55 mile open water crossing we need light winds coming from NNE to SE. We are well used to paddling in very strong winds but for this crossing we have raised the bar on our safety margins.

So far, Thursday looks like it might be the day. We’ll keep an eye on the forecast and make the decision the night before we set off.

In the meantime, we shall continue our tour of the cafes in St Davids.

Thank you for the very generous donations to our three charities!!

Cold bivi last night. We were both glad when it was time to get up and get under way and warm up in the morning sunshine. We hadn’t managed to stock up on provisions the previous day so breakfast was a bit odd: slices of Edam, slightly stale bread roll, couple of dates and a banana.

This part of the coast has some extraordinary bird colonies and we have been enjoying seeing the thousands and thousands of nesting sea birds including guillemots, razor bills and as we approached Skomer, more and more puffins. We have also seen plenty of gannets too.

This coast also has some exhilarating tides. Last night we flew along passed Skomer in the races at around 8 knots (we normally paddle at 4 knots). This morning we picked up the same stream and flew off to Ramsey Island and the famous tide race called The Bitches (which makes me grin as it’s also the name that Tanya and her friends give to themselves at their Tuesday afternoon Stitch and Bitch sessions).

The Bitches is famous amongst kayakers for being both exciting and terrifying in equal measure. Geoff and I had passed through with our mate Mike back in 2012 when we went round Britain. We remembered the fast and bumpy ride back then.

So as we approached Ramsey Sound we were looking forward to seeing what top speed we might get on the way through. It looked ok from half a mile out, a few “ripples” on the surface but no mountains of standing waves waiting for us. 5 knots became 6, 6 became 7 and so on until as the wind was whistling in our ears we hit 11 knots. Both concentrating on staying upright in the bouncing confused waters, we were both thrilled at the ground we were covering. Geoff continued to call out the amazing speeds he was seeing on his GPS as I saw two rather violent steep waves coming towards me at different directions. Hit one, bounced off the other and into an eddy. I was still upright but now facing the wrong way. Rather than punch back across the eddy line into the main stream, I chose what looked like a slower current. After that adrenaline moment I was quite happy to bounce along at 7 knots rather than 11.

Meanwhile I scanned ahead for Geoff, he was easily a ⅓ mile ahead.

The race carries on for over a mile and we were headed for Whitesands Bay just at the end of the Sound. We paddled furiously to get out on the stream and into the relative peace of the bay.

A cheeky little surf later and we landed and pitched our tents in a great little campsite.

Now in position to attempt our Ireland crossing. The question is when???

Just landed and setting up camp opposite Skomer Island

228 miles covered and every day an adventure.

A big decision about the Irish Sea crossing to be made tomorrow.

Thank you all for the messages of support over this first week. It really helps knowing you are along for the ride!

Definitely have to come back and see Lundy at a more relaxed pace. Absolutely stunning. Incredible birdlife and the people living and working on the Island were so friendly. We climbed the steep hill up to the campsite with 2 Ikea bags of kit each (we did have to stop on the way to catch our breath).

By the time we got there news had already had already spread that we were the kayakers that had just landed. News travels fast on the island!

Two dinners that night, homemade baked beans and then into the tavern for part 2. Great thing about being on expedition is you can eat loads!

As we climbed down the next morning, a little easier than the climb up, the massive 8.4m tide was in had changed the landscape in front of us.

There was a fairly thick fog over the Channel, visibility was around 300m or so but we could occasionally see the sun above us trying to burn it off.

We headed off on a 350 degree heading towards Stackpole Head knowing that we would be taken east by the ebb tide for most of the day and west again a bit for the last couple of hours. Well that was the plan.

Conditions were perfect as we pushed through the races at the north end of the island and into the fog. Fog can be so disorienting so we had to concentrate on the compass heading.

We both love kayaking in fog. It is somehow so peaceful. Every so often a sea bird would appear just bobbing around blissfully in of our presence.

Over the course of the next 10 hours we saw seals, guillemots, razorbills, puffins, gannets, shearwaters and dolphins. Delightful interruptions to the monotony of paddling.

The fog lifted after about 3 hours. Though we would not see land until hour 6.

We broke the journey into 1 hour chunks, stopping for a drink, snack and a pee. Food and water is so important for morale and energy on these longer paddles.

Finally we could make out our destination on the horizon but seemed to take an age to get there. Probably because it did!

We had quite a debate over the last couple of hours about which feature was actually our destination. In the last couple of miles we got a phone out and booted up our Boating app and could see that we were about a mile off where we thought we were. Not bad after 41 miles mostly in fog. Our longest open water crossing to date.

We pulled up the boats on a gloriously sunny evening into Stackpole Quay where we would bivi for the night.

The next morning would be a slower start. We have 2 days to get ourselves into position to cross the Irish Sea on Sunday. The biggest challenge on this expedition.

The next morning we met David and Charlotte over breakfast. A lovely couple on a two day break. David is hoping to complete his 100 marathon this year! Blimey now that really is a challenge.

Just a very quick update. After a long day in saddle, we left Lundy in a fog bank this morning at 8.20 and landed at Stackpole Quay Pembrokeshire after a 41 mile crossing across Bristol Channel. Great day, will do a fuller write up tomorrow.

Time for a brew and some food!