A perfect day off Portsmouth

Once again a good briefing is vital but what is hiding under that hat? Sandwiches? Trip Leader's EPIRB? Rubber Duck to diffuse any potential aggresive contacts bewteen paddlers?

Final adjustments before the "off"

Smiles in the sun all round

On parade at South Parade Pier

A neat tidy line in the sun at lunchtime

A Trax folding boat joined the fleet -adjustable rocker and adjustable sideways bow curve in place of a skeg, all controlled from the cockpit without taking off the spray deck. Jim took it home on the back seat of the car!

A few clouds appeared for the return trip - have a word with the Trip Leader, will you!

The tow line (nicely slack here!) came out to assist some for the return against a strong Langstone ebb tide. Others elected to land at the base of the pier and portage the last 300metres.

A great paddle, thank you Andrew but we still don't know what was under your hat?!

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.

Some video...

Better late than never; here's some video of last Sundays epic.

(Music by Snow Patrol)

Lepe - Cowes - Newport with PDCC - 6th Sept. 2009

A video record of the PDCC trip to Cowes (& up the R. Medina to Newport) Isle of Wight on Sunday 6th September 2009. By Simon Davies

Isle of Wight Circumnavigation 2009

The Club's annual circumnavigation of the IOW last weekend was combined with a charity paddle organised by the Upper Hamble Club, so we were a group of 25. Starting from Lee on Solent, the first hazard was the crossing to the island.

Near perfect weather for the Needles,

allowed some play,

and a well earnt break at Scratchell's.

With such a large party, the overnight stay was arranged at Grange Chine campsite.

The second day dawned grey, but the sun came out beyond St. Catherine's. Giving us another fine day to complete the 55nm.