I’ve neglected Bumblebee Paddles terribly! I’ve missed nine blog posts in a row and I haven’t touched Instagram since early December! It’s because I’m a fair weather paddler and I have absolutely nothing to say in the winter. But let’s say it anyway.
Let’s start nice and easy with some reflections on paddling in 2024. The highs, the lows and the curiosities.
The highs were the trip to Croatia and the day paddling the Elafiti Islands, definitely. I paddle the south coast of the UK and while we do have nice days, it doesn’t really compare to paddling a turquoise sea, hopping from island to island and stopping for lunch at a little stone fish restaurant. The day I paddled out to Old Harry Rocks against a really strong wind and then went to soothe my tired muscles in the seaside sauna was a good one too. It felt more like a… I’m just going to say it… daycation than one of the many “can I hire a kayak?” trips I’ve done. Taking my paddleboard out on the sea was a special day too. Admittedly, it’s only because the river was too revolting and polluted to consider such a thing but it was fun (once I’d carried the lopsided thing across the car park and across the square and across the sand) to just drift up and down the beaches. I will never be one of these beautiful serene creatures gliding by but for a while I felt the serenity that I feel when I see them. Other highs were the boathouse – I will always love seeing girls who initially struggle find their confidence and learn to enjoy themselves. Getting my own keys to the boathouse! Now I really feel like I belong – I can let myself in and out whenever I feel like it!
The lows were absolutely the Big Paddle Parade. I could have wrestled those waves in a kayak but somehow on a SUP, I just wasn’t going anywhere. The time I capsized at boat club was not exactly gleeful either. I had a nice shiny red new sling that I was in the middle of putting away and it’s now on the bottom of the sea. But more than that, I couldn’t get back in on my own and ended up being towed to the shallows and walking from there. It wasn’t exactly a high when the local Sea Scouts paddled their canoes straight at my girls while yelling “RAM THEM!!”, not least because it’s my job as the adult to put myself between the boathouse girls and their attackers – better me capsized than them. Other than that, I don’t think I really have any lows. Not a paddling thing exactly but I killed my GoPro and had to buy a new one, which was definitely a low of some kind – I take my GoPro out paddling every time because I love to have pictures but I actually killed it by leaving it running too long in a Tbilisi sulphur bath. I think it just couldn’t take that much heat.
The curiosities: well, getting to see the air ambulance land at the beach one evening and see how long it took to clear a stretch of beach for it to land was eye-opening (it was a really long time!). My first paddle of the year, hiring a canoe in April, wasn’t quite a low but there was a really strong current on the river and I fought it for a long time before giving in to the inevitable and turning back. I do like a canoe trip – although I can’t do the j-stroke and therefore splashily move the paddle from side to side for the entire trip, there’s something of the serenity in it that other people seem to get from paddleboarding. And I do tend to cross the river to the quay and get an ice cream afterwards, so that’s fun. Other curiosities: I love the new Girlguiding Adventure Leader badge. I’ve got a kayaking (on land) garment planned for 2025 (although whether I actually get the garment I want is a bit out of my control…) and I’ve got an Adventure Leader badge specifically to go on it, as well as one of our boathouse badges.
Oh, fine, ok, let’s talk stuff. Half the fun of any hobby is buying the stuff. What new stuff did I acquire in 2024? Well, there was the aforementioned sling and two karabiners to go with it – in fact, two sets of sling & karabiner since, as I mentioned, the first are on the bottom of the sea. I bought a new waterproof case for my phone, which I’d previously been leaving on dry land. The only other thing I bought was a pair of really lightweight neoprene shoes. I paddle in my old caving neoprene socks which I bought in 2004. They’re still going strong but they have no protection against stones and rocks and whatnot on the soles. So a few years ago I bought a pair of neoprene booties with solid soles but they’re really hard to get off and those soles aren’t a whole lot more protective than the socks. Then I went out paddling in September to get my mojo back and my instructor lent me a pair of little neoprene slippers to wear over my socks and I fell in love. They’re so small and light I can’t feel them but they protect really well against rocks, and I wore them to scramble over Old Harry, so trust me on that. I do tend to get pins & needles so I can well imagine that they’re going to come off my feet while I’m paddling and certainly if I capsize but, knock on wood, I don’t do that often so they’ll be great for going down to the shore at the boathouse. I might take them off and shove them down my buoyancy aid when I’m actually on the water, or see if they have a loop on the back so I can clip them onto the boat.
I think that’s all I bought. I’ve been paddling on and off semi-seriously since about 2021 so I already had all the personal kit I’m ever likely to buy. I’d like a better buoyancy aid but there’s nothing really wrong with my existing one. I’m never going to buy a kayak because the only place I can store it is at the boathouse and we already have kayaks there I can use. I suppose at a push you could say I bought an RNLI keyring and lanyard for my boathouse keys but in reality, I bought them because I felt like I should support the RNLI and then had to find something to do with them. Oh, I bought some mini karabiners to tether my GoPro to my buoyancy aid! It’s on a floaty handle but when I capsized, I realised it has the capacity to float away on the open sea before I’m ready to chase it down, so it needs to be attached. And I made a post-kayaking suit but I think that deserves its own post, so I’ll save that for next week.
This is my plan – accountability! – for the next few weeks. Next week I’ll tell you about the me-made suit. The week after that is our boathouse planning meeting, which isn’t going to be riveting as content goes. The week after that I’ll tell you my plans and ideas for 2025 and then I’ve got a kayak adventure in early March which will probably end up here on the 13th. I’ve got the pool session post pencilled in for April 24th but it depends when the pool session actually happens, since we haven’t had the meeting to plan it yet, let alone actually booked it. First boathouse post of the year is due May 29th and then I’ll tell you all about the season on July 17th. As for the rest? We’ll see.
See you next week for the new season of “Bumblebee finds something to write about paddling until it gets cold again”.
Bumblebee Paddles 