The Thursday Paddle: Gilkicker to Cowes

4:30 am!! My alarm clock squared up to me, beeping defiantly as it waited to receive its early morning clout. The next thing I remember is running through the pouring rain at Gilkicker. I decided to chance putting my dry suit on in the loos; surely no one would be about in this weather? But a tall lady came in just as I was squashing a pile of clothes, food, flasks, scattered dry bags and booties against the wall. She pointed at the door and said “out!” very sternly. I glanced around nervously, and was relieved to see, from the patient clouds of breath coming from her unseen dog around the corner, that I was not the one being evicted.

We were Tony, Sheila, Mike and Stuart (not Martin this time) made famous earlier this year by a song about four crazy people paddling to Ryde on a Thursday morning.

There was some discussion about how to deal with shipping; play it by ear or apply the time table? The rain started to ease off and in a fit of optimism we decided on the former and launched into a now mellowing Solent.

We were soon making steady progress towards a huge brown vessel
looming smokily at anchor beside the shipping lane.

Some of its yellow jacketed denizens in a small attending boat assured us that it would depart for Lima “in ten minutes or an hour”, so we honoured tradition by paddling anticlockwise around its rusty hull, taking photos while Mike made us nervous by telling us he was going to shoot the gap between the rudder and the ship.

The sun had come out and the last leg to Cowes was very pleasant. Stuart lead us to a tiny strip of shingle beside a slipway that surprisingly absorbed all our kayaks for the duration of a leisurely lunch.

Our ship, outlined against a big chunk of rainbow, was underway and turning by the time we were back in the shipping lane. Tony advised us that if it picked up speed and headed towards us, we ought to catch a ride on its bow wave.

I stopped thinking of exchanging my sweaty woolly hat with ear flaps for a cap and decided to keep paddling instead. The rainbow kept pace along the seafront, shimmering above GAFIRs’ big orange doors, while two further magnificent arcs, the longest and brightest I have ever seen, soared towards us out of the grey skies over the mainland

The sunlight was failing and a hazy Solent dusk was already gathering behind the Island, sepia tinted and bordered with clouds like an old fashioned photograph with torn edges.

Back at Gilkicker, Ian and Mike practiced rolling enthusiastically. A few onlookers gathered on the shore, possibly hoping to see some lifeboat action. Mike was being driven to extremes by the dreaded rolling gremlins, but did some very impressive re-entry and rolls that would be the envy of most kayakers. I got to practice my bow rescue, and just as we were beginning to think GAFIRS might be about to come down the slipway to drag Mike from the water, he decided to call it a day.

A car of onlookers drove off. We passed around the hot chocolate and reflected on the fickleness of the rolling muse, and what a good day we’d had.