The Two Towers - a Trilogy Perhaps?

2011 must be the Year of the Tower! So far, PDCC trips have visited two of Britain’s remarkable offshore lighthouse towers:- The Nab Tower, 7.5Nm south of Portsmouth was followed by a circumnavigation of Hayling Island to get home! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nab_Tower and, the Royal Sovereign Lighthouse, 6Nm due south of Pevensey Bay in East Sussex. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Sovereign_lighthouse Both have interesting histories and can be very lonely, exposed places in poor weather. Luckily for us we had great conditions but they are still committing paddles. So what’s next? Another tower would make it a trilogy? For those that can make it, Spence is planning the big one, a paddle to the Eddystone Lighthouse off Plymouth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddystone_Lighthouse This is planned for Friday 17th June as part of the Devon Camping & paddling weekend. I’m doing the weekend but sadly, work commitments means I will have to leave the trilogy to some other lucky club members. Two out of three aint bad! Sprucey

The Nab

The Nab The Royal Sovereign The Royal Sovereign

The Royal Sovereign

The Royal Sovereign

The Royal Sovereign

The Eddystone Lighthouse

Tour de Langstone

Last Saturday saw 10 paddlers venture into Langstone Harbour for the first of our new, regular monthly Saturday paddles. It was great to see some newer faces out on the water and, as an all-grades paddle, we had a really nice mix of of experience, old and new. Mike Cox lead us around Sinah Lake, the Hayling Oyster Beds and under the Hayling road bridge into Chichester harbour & Fowley Island for a lunch stop at the end of Beach Road in Emsworth. The return back to Langstone took us through the gap between Long and Baker's Island (plenty of birds but unfortunately no resident seals to be seen), scraping over some shallow lagoons on a falling tide off Farlington Marshes before finally riding the fast ebb back to Eastney. A varied paddle - the distance, the building afternoon cross-wind and some choppy wind over tide waves (in the main Langstone channel) provided some challenges but everyone stayed dry and managed really well.

It was great way to push some personal boundaries in a protected, supported environment. 

Important Club Announcement

The committee have asked me to make an announcement about a major new investment of member’s funds. As a result of both the survey conducted by the BCU and the recent EU “Canoe Raft and Personal” safety directive (CRAP 01/04/2011) the committee have become increasingly concerned about health & safety and how it affects their potential personal liabilities if a major incident were to occur on a club trip. An Extraordinary committee meeting was held earlier in April and it was decided to spend the club reserves on a share in a second-hand helicopter along with UHCC. A suitable rotary wing aircraft has now been found and Mark Spruce attended a flying course @ Culdrose, near Falmouth last week to do a training & conversion course with Sea Flying Cornwall. Our thanks go to club member Paul, a Navy pilot, who also gave up a week of his leave to train him.

Mark "Rock-hopping" while training in Cornwall

The inaugural club flight was a discrete fly past over the round Hayling paddle and I have posted the pictures we managed to snap from the cockpit (Below). There are clearly several ramifications for all members about this new venture. Obviously, in addition to obtaining the BCU 4* leaders qualification, all trip leaders will now be expected to pass their Private Pilots Licence (PPL – Rotary) in the current subscription year. In addition, it will mean a small increase in club subscriptions but the committee have assured me that it will only be in the order of 1000% for the next 100 years so they feel sure that, with such a good value, low cost subscription at present, most members will not notice this very small increase. The helicopter is based at Daedalus airfield, Lee on Solent and members who would like to see it can enter through the north gate on presentation of their membership card. It can be found next to the MCA helicopter at their base and it’s registration number is: G-LAPROLIOF0104. Please do go and look at your new helicopter. We would also encourage all members to keep an eye out for our chopper and give it a big wave when you see it when out on the water.

Sunday 27 March

Twenty two Club members set off from Langstone Bridge to East Head and met two more members there. Twenty four, is this a record? Only part of the flotilla is in the picture.

Eleven of the party went on out of the entrance over lunch and were rewarded with swell "1' and glassy", 10 seconds apart and rearing to head height (seated in the kayak!) in places. Despite being 1/2 mile offshore we could surf the deeper channels catching waves which formed and reformed for miles (at least 50 metres). Ankle deep water nearby facilitated the inevitable boat emptying. Swimmers pronounced the water pleasantly warm, it must be Summer.