By this point, I’d got into a bit of a habit of hiring a canoe and paddling up the river on nice Sunday mornings. Up the river? Yes, I think so. Up river to the road bridge, which is a little way before the weir. If you go down the river, you have to get … More A canoeing lesson
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
I’d only really just sorted out in my head what the difference was between a kayak and a canoe. I can’t comprehend not knowing that now. They’re so different and the only similarity really is that they’re a lot longer than they are wide and they go on the water. It’s like not being able … More My first canoeing experience
I might have got quite into paddling the next summer but that was the summer of 2020 and we all know what happened there. But during one of the phases of “you can go out and do things but still keep 2m away”, I realised I could hire a paddleboard and go out on Poole … More Poole Park in the plague
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
Bumblebee Paddles 