Welcome to my Sea Kayaking (b)log
It was raining when I left home to travel the 6 miles to the "A Frames Dive Site" at the now-disused Finnart Oil Terminal on Loch Long. By the time I reached the car park, the rain had eased off a bit, but it was all a bit misty. At least it was nice...
Having spent the morning with my chainsaw and chipper, chopping trees and processing the branches, I decided to take the afternoon off and head out in the Taran. It was a beautiful day, after all. With no particular plan in mind, I headed across to Clynder to gain some shelter from the wind blowing...
What a wet day. It did nothing but pour down all day long. Consequently, when I arrived at the HCC boat containers at the RNCYC, I wondered if anyone was actually going to turn up. But then Steve arrived, closely followed by Kate. With a club boat loaded onto Steve's car, we set off...
With the passing of our Greyhound Gemma, we decided to get away from it all and headed for a short break on Mull. We stopped for a couple of nights in our campervan at the rather excellent Port Nan Gael campsite on the Ross of Mull, next to Loch Scridain. The weather was brilliant,...
When I was paddling at Luss a few weeks ago, Drumchapel and Clydebank Kayak Club (DCKC) were out in force. I decided to join the club as they all seemed very keen and a nice group of people. I was also reading at the time, Robin Lloyd-Jones book called Argonauts of the Scottish Isles,...
This trip was led and organised by Stuart. We set off from the now redundant Finnart Oil Terminal, also known as Finnart Ocean Terminal. With Loch Long being a deep water loch, this oil terminal could take oil tankers up to 324,000 tonnes. The oil was discharged here and pipped all the way across...
The 6 mile trip to Kilcreggan from Shandon is always a nice trip, with the added bonus of having a coffee and cake at the cafe. With clear blue skies and next to no wind it was certainly a lovely day. Before setting off I telephoned the Kings Harbour Master (KHM Clyde 01436 674321...
With temperatures set to soar well into the mid-30s in the East Midlands, we decided to head for the coast—somewhere cooler, with a nice sea breeze. Five and a half hours later, we finally arrived at the end of the Llŷn Peninsula in Aberdaron. There had been a bad accident on the M6, and...
Friday 6th June A quick paddle from Helensburgh Leisure centre. At first, I didn't have any plans on where I would head too. But on getting into my boat, I decided to head into the wind and against the ebbing tide. Low Water wouldn't be for a few hours so at least I would...
Monday 6th May I was up in Whitby visiting an old friend, with also the cheeky intension of getting a sea paddle in. Having looked at the forecast before setting off, I decided to take my surf boat along, as well as Tiderace Pace Tour 17, AKA "the Carrot", just in case the conditions...
So you may (or may not) be asking how come I've only logged one sea trip so far this year, and it is now April? Well, it's been a bit of a funny 2025 so far, with lots of family stuff happening. Mainly clearing and selling houses, and hopefully moving to Scotland, once we...
This year, every time I've planned for a date to do the Anglesey circumnavigation, something would happen; mainly the weather ie. far too windy, or family stuff would clash. All the dates I had planned for this year just came and went. This year hasn't exactly been great for me getting to the coast...
We were only supposed to go to Middle Mouse, but conditions were so fab we ended up doing the Skerries! Brill day and a great end to a long weekend!...
Paddling in a sauna! Fab day! ...
The weather forecast for Wednesday was not at all good. Si and I went and took a look at Trearddur Bay and we were not impressed. Very windy, Rain showers, big seas and flat broken waves. Fine if you fancy being bongo'd sideways constantly, but neither of us did. So we chatted to the...
Meeting on a Tuesday for a change, Si and I decided to paddle the North Coast. We love paddling the North Coast of Anglesey, as there is always something to see. Not to mention the large tidal movements you experience along this stretch of coast. High Water (HW) would be at 11:16 am Liverpool,...
Sunday, the weather was not looking too promising. The forecast stated conditions would deteriorate with strong winds increasing throughout the day. So, after a hearty breakfast in the Paddlers, we decided to head for Trearddur Bay. Initially, we talked about heading around the coast towards Rhoscolyn, but soon after setting off from the beach,...
Saturday morning, I met up with Si, Keith and Ashley for breakfast in a little cafe at Valley. The reason for having breakfast here instead of in the Paddlers, was that Anglesey Outdoors and especially the Paddlers was heaving! If we'd had gone to the Paddlers, we would have been waiting for a very...
2022 was a bit of a weird year for me. It started off fairly normally, but from July I was increasingly busy with some family bereavements. Apart from my IOW circumnavigation and the Oban Sea Kayak Race which had been previously pencilled in on the calendar, if I did get any time to go...
I hate cold and wet, especially when you feel like you have just woken up and feel all warm. In fact, I had overslept and was still trying to wake up! The last thing you want (or need) is to get cold and wet. But we had decided to do a skills session at...
