Because I’ve been telling my paddling story chronologically here, I haven’t mentioned the boathouse yet but the season is upon us! Eventually, we’ll catch up – you’ll find out how I came across the boathouse and how I joined it and what happened there last year but for now, we’ll jump straight into 2024. The … More Boat club 2024 season: the pool session
This is still up in my top three paddle experiences. This is what I had to get comfortable in a sea kayak for: a night navigation trip, paddling in the dark. This was in October 2021 so we were past the worst of the lockdowns and restrictions but Fore/Adventure still had the requirement that you … More Night navigation by sea kayak
I had a plan for October and to do that, I needed some experience in paddling a sea kayak. I think at this point, I didn’t really know what a sea kayak was. But I knew it would involve wearing a spraydeck. The sea kayak in question was seventeen feet long – half the length … More Learning to paddle a sea kayak
Of course, I came away from my Discover/Explore weekend full of plans and ideas and the first one was to hire a kayak down at Studland and have a go at everything on my own. Try out my new strokes, get properly comfortable in a kayak, maybe even have a go at some self-rescue. I … More Consolidation: practising my skills
In the time since I first tried to do my 1 Star and the second time, the entire awards system was overhauled the 1 Star ceased to exist. As far as I could tell, the Star awards were replaced with, among other things, the Personal Performance Awards and the closest equivalent to 1 Star was … More I did my Discover and Explore Awards
A week or so later, I took my Rangers out paddling for the first time. I don’t know why I’d never done that or why I suddenly had the idea to. There was a local Ranger leader working at a watersports centre and so off we went. We started with kayaking and then moved on … More Paddling with the Rangers
I was prepared. I had a buoyancy aid. I had a wetsuit, the same one I’d used on my practice trip. I had my old neoprene caving socks. At some point for some reason now lost in time, I had a rash vest aka “a wetsuit t-shirt”. I had a footpump suitable for inflating my … More Taking out the inflatable kayak
Two years later. Lidl had inflatable kayaks and I bought one. I was actually on my way to North Devon at the time. Now, maybe an inflatable kayak wasn’t a great idea but I’d been out twice by then and I’ve been seeing the local news all my life. I knew that there were certain … More The first kayak trip I enjoyed
Why, when the first went so badly, did I go back for a second kayaking trip? Well, for some reason I decided that after capsizing six times in ten minutes during my only previous kayaking experience, it was time to take on my BCU 1 Star award. I know. It didn’t feel fortunate at the … More My second kayaking trip
My actual first kayaking trip was when I was a Guide. We went to Hamworthy School’s tiny swimming pool, which I imagine could probably only fit two or three kayaks at a time, and we learned to roll. Then I probably didn’t set foot in a kayak for nearly twenty years, until I went out … More My first kayaking trip
Bumblebee Paddles 