Thursday 25 November 2010

Ships that pass in the night


Good to see some newcomers to the Club out on the water last night, 

alongside familiar faces.

A black black night  last night, luckily the wind at 4kt wasn't inducing much wind chill, or it would have been very cold. One of the joys of paddling a busy place like Portsmouth Harbour is the interest of passing shipping and being only a few yards away from large ships whilst keeping things safe for everyone, crossing deep water channels responsibly and letting QHM know your intentions. 

Here is the Bretagne, 24,500 tonnes, 2000 plus passengers (but only 400 tonight), 130 man crew, creeping up behind 7 kayaks, 0.5 tonnes and 7 passengers and crew. It has engines generating 18,000 kW, how many kW can we manage between us? Its 26m beam almost exactly measures 50 Anas acutas side by side, but it is only 20 times longer, so we are the sleeker craft. 

Watching each other, it passes as we head outbound to No.4 buoy

and continues into the night for France, whilst we cross astern, back towards the shore and a well deserved drink at The Wellington.

Monday 22 November 2010

Hillhead to Hamble last Friday

Here's a few photo's taken last Friday on my lone paddle from Hillhead to Hamble Village.

As you can see, the conditions were wonderful

I had the pleasure of seeing an amazing variety of wildlife including a Great Northern Diver, a Slavonian Grebe, a flock of Eider and Common Scoter and another seal (though this time it was a Grey).

It was great paddling in the rain

But even better when the sun came out


I wonder when we'll see conditions like this again

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.