Surf lunch

At lunchtime I had my first lesson in surf landings. Unfortunately most of the lesson came after the landing attempt....

We headed (appently downhill now that I look at my photo!) to Crovie for lunch. My camera was still rather wet from rounding Troup Head so the photos aren't as clear as I'd like due to water on the lens.

There was some surf on the beach, so our coach, Alan, gave us some brief advice about landing in surf - mainly to keep straight and that if we capsized we should make sure we came up on the seaward side of the boat so we didn't get brained by the boat after we'd capsized! This proved to be very useful advice...

We watched some of the others head ashore nicely, only to get rather wet as the waves came in too fast for them to get out of the kayaks quickly enough before the surf either dumped on them or tipped their boats over. After a bit of fiddling with the rudder, and enlisting the help of another paddler to pull it up in the end, it was our turn to head for the beach.

As we found out from Alan afterwards (during a clearly explained lesson which I hope I'm remembering correctly) in surf the kayak can do 3 things - spin you on top of the wave, turn you side on to the wave, or tip you over. Myself and my paddling partner kindly demonstrated all 3 at once for the others to see! I hope they learned from it!!!

Luckily there were plenty of others already ashore so there were plenty of willing hands to right and empty the double kayak! And we'd followed Alan's instructions and come up on the seaward side, so no bruises for us either. I came up laughing which was quite a relief as I've always been scared of wary about putting my face in the water, let alone actually turning upside down in a boat! I've done it many times in practice, but still have to psych myself up for it each time, so it was great that I reacted instinctively and got myself out safely - and, in a perverse kind of way, enjoyed it. With hindsight, I'm really glad I capsized as I'm now not nearly as scared of capsizing 'for real' as I know I can cope with it. Of course, having confidence in your fellow paddlers and their ability to rescue you if necessary also makes a huge difference!!

I think getting the double safely ashore in surf also needs better teamwork than we had - another useful lesson learned for the future.

While we were having lunch ashore Alan gave us further instruction about landing in surf. Later in the day I was to witness a perfect example of what he was telling us... (more on that in a separate blog entry.)

After lunch we launched into the small surf.

I managed to catch another photo to explain why at least one paddler was merely copying the experienced paddlers when he lifted his paddle right up (nearly with disastrous results) every time he met a wave. :-)

"Jelly for tea, anyone?"

Paddling Troup - view from the cliffs

Us rounding Troup Head by kayak.

All these photos courtesy of my friend John. Thanks again!

Rounding Troup Head

I've visited Troup Head many times now, to see Scotland's only mainland gannet colony, but this was the first time I'd seen it from the sea.

There was a fairly big swell, but everyone seemed to be coping with it well, although we did have a few problems with keeping direction in the double. Our zig zag course worked well though, and we still made progress.

Soon we had hundreds of gannets soaring over our heads, and we stopped for a bit to enjoy the spectacle.

The swell was still a bit bigger than we'd expected from the forecast. It went down significantly there later in the day - a little late for us though. It just meant we paddled a bit out from the cliffs (much to John's disgust as he was trying to photograph us from the cliff top) and I didn't feel I could take my hands off the paddle to take photos for much of the trip.

Mostly we saw gannets (of course!) and kittiwakes, razorbills and guillemots but there were some puffins around too. My best puffin sighting of the day was when one flew directly towards us with its big orange feet in full view, and then veered off a few metres before it reached us. We also saw a puffin close in to Crovie, so I'll have to keep a sharper lookout from my balcony, just in case...

When we moved into more sheltered waters and I felt able to take photos again, I discovered that my camera had some water on the lens - the first time I've really experienced that problem. So the next photos are all a little smudged looking!

Heading into Gamrie Bay. These sea stacks are the ones I can see from my house.

Soon it would be time for lunch...

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Surf launching

As I think I've already said, I've been lucky enough to find a kayaking club here that's friendly and very welcoming to paddlers with disabilities. We're also lucky to have several coaches and experienced paddlers who spend a lot of time passing on their skills. Today's first lesson was launching through surf.....

We started off (after loading the club trailer) by getting changed at Macduff and leaving our dry clothes and some cars there, ready for the end of the day. My car was then left in the 'middle' of the paddle at Gardenstown, so that people could finish paddling at lunchtime if they so chose.

We had plenty of time to contemplate the surf while we were waiting for someone to drive back to Macduff to retrieve the key to the trailer box which had been left in the pocket of someone's shorts there so we could get the paddles out.... 

We're all sure the surf got bigger in that time... nerves were building in some cases (including mine!! not helped by meeting one of my pupils who then sat down on the beach by the boats to watch and see if I capsized....)

This photo courtesy of my friend John. Thanks!

Eventually we were all ready, and after some words of advice we were pointed at the surf and set loose.

Two paddlers, including one of the most experienced, were first out, to act as a point of reference for us, whilst the other coaches remained ashore to set us off, and to fish us out as necessary (luckily they only had to do that with one boat.)

Into the surf...

The coaches wondered why the paddler who capsized lifted his paddle up as he met each wave.... he was obviously only copying those experts ahead of him who'd made it safely - and made it look easy...

Finally we were all safely out, in amongst the 3m or so swell, and we headed off towards Troup Head...

Dolphin encounter

We'd just finished our rockhopping and stopped for the obligatory chocolate break ...

... and started heading back along the coast, playing in some small races, when the cry went up "Dolphins!"

There seemed to be a large number of dolphins, and some actually came towards us, and were as close as 2-3 metres from some of the kayaks.

I saw a couple of breaches, but my wee waterproof camera is rather slow, so I didn't manage to catch those. I switched to video in the hopes of catching something more, and I managed to get a couple of short clips showing both kayakers and dolphins.

We then slowly paddled back into the sunset, dolphin watching all the way.

What an amazing experience!

Rockhopping

I've been lucky enough to find a kayak club that doesn't run a mile at the thought of paddlers with disabilities, and instead actively try to find ways to allow *everyone* to paddle. They've even bought 2 double kayaks so that people with, for example, wrist/arm problems or learning disabilities can get out paddling. I was out in the club double for a great wee paddle from Banff beach, along the coastline past Macduff.

Being in the double was so much easier on my wrists that I was actually able to paddle the whole way! It was a different experience to being in my own boat, as I wasn't in charge of steering at all but was the engine, but once we got the hang of it (or rather, once my fellow paddler worked out how to work the rudder so that we could steer more easily...) it was very enjoyable and I'm really hoping to get out in the double again soon.

The coastline was full of interest with lots of rocks to squeeze between....

This particular one was definitely a challenge in the double - but we made it! Thought we were going to get stuck at one point, as the waves seemed to be more in control of the boat that we were, but we made it with no damage.

All great fun, and the evening had more in store for us yet...

The Impossible Is Nothing

More memories from summer 2009 - Don and Ora's great film about the youth group from the Okanagan who came to Orkney and spent 2 weeks paddling with the Spirit Dancer canoe.

The Kwu Sukwna?qinx Canoe Family were a great bunch of folk and I feel very privileged to have the had the opportunity to spend the 2 weeks with them. I wasn't able to paddle much as I'd just had an operation on my wrist, but I was the official Spirit Dancer photographer for the month it was in Orkney and had a fantastic time!


Impossible is Nothing from Donald Jonasson on Vimeo.

Fetlar part 2

Woke to a lovely morning, had breafast and washed dishes (yes, Mum, in the sea!!!!!). Then I headed up to the campsite for toilets and shower. I know that seems a bit cheeky when I wans't staying there - but the tourist leaflet clearly says the public toilets are at the pier and campsite. And I paid for the shower. The campsite continued to underwhelm me - a lot of dead insects and the shower door wouldn't close - it was jamming and I was worried about getting stuck in it!! Luckily the place was deserted! Had noticed yesterday that in the campsite toilets the toilet paper was completely jammed in the holder and wouldn't come out and the paper towel container was totally empty. Later on in the day today I called past there again and the floor had been mopped so someone obviously cleans and keeps an eye on things - but the toilet paper was still jammed (to the extent of being unusable) and there were still no paper towels!!

Fetlar has a lot to learn about how to cater for tourists (more on that subject later...)

 Mark & Heather setting off on their paddle

Anyway, I headed back down to Tresta to give Heather a lift when she dropped off the car at the end of the headland they were going to paddle round. I was going to go a walk so had a look at the leaflet, then Mark said theyd take me out a short paddle when they got in - may be straight across about 1km to Hascosay island. So I decided to maybe go for a short walk then meet Mark and Heather and go for a short paddle.

I went down to the Interpretive Centre first - the Fetlar leaflet (produced by the centre!!!!) says it has free wireless internet access. I asked in the centre - no free access, you pay. I asked about wifi - the guy had no idea what I was talking about. So the free wireless internet is neither free nor wireless...... hmmm, this to me pretty much sums up Fetlar. Also called (in their own leaflets!) the 'garden of Shetland' - well it's certainly not greener than anywhere else, doesn't seem to have a greater profusion of wildflowers and apart from the red necked phalaropes (we didn't see any) had no other rarer birds than the other islands. Hmmmm.

Fetlar *is* a nice island, just don't go believing everything you read about it or you'll be sadly disappointed. Another Fetlar high point was that the very well advertised cafe is shut until further notice!!!! This caught out Mark and Heather yesterday, as did the fact that the shop was closed so they couldn't get any fresh food (luckily they were well stocked with other food and I had onions and peppers to spare.)

Anyway, back to the Interpretive Centre.... The guy was helpful and just charged £1 for me to use the very slow laptop and get online to check the weather forecast for Mark and Heather as they're thinking of paddling to Out Skerries. They can't get weather forecasts easily here due to the lack of mobile phone signal!! The Interpretive centre was excellent, very interesting, and I spent about an hour there then headed back to the loch. The mist (which I'd seen coming in a bit earlier) had really rolled in by now and there was no chance of seeing much in the way of scenery. I again saw 2 red throated divers on the loch and then walked to the bird hide, quite a nice area but didn't see any birds! The wee book for recording what you see showed that the previous day someone had also seen 2 red throated divers on the loch and nothing from the hide also!

When I got back to the car the mist was really quite thick, need the car lights on for sure! Headed to the shop. Not overly impressed with it either (suppose I should have expected that really by now). Was looking for cold juice to take down to meet Heather & Mark - they were going to get some cans for paddling but the shop was closed all day yesterday and not open till 11am today  Anyway, I'd given them my cartons of fruit juice to take so decided to get some cold cans and more wee cartons of fruit juice. No luck - the shop had neither! The fruit & veg was extremely tired and wrinkled looking, so I bought a packet of fruit pastels as I didn't like to go out empty handed and there really didn't seem to be anything else worth buying!

I headed off to Brough Lodge and had a good look round the outside (you're not allowed in). It's an interesting building, a real hodge-podge of styles. Went up to the folly too - very strange as I couldn't see where the stairs would have been. It was built as a folly (he built other follies on Fetlar too) but was used as an observatory for a while too, so there must have been some way of getting to the upstair room.

Old boat on the shore below Brough Lodge.

Looking down from the folly I spotted 2 kayaks, so headed back down to the wee pier and fantastic old boat to meet them.

Do Shetland ponies like chocolate?

I went out paddling with Mark (in his boat as I'd been in it before and he felt it would be slightly more stable for me than Heather's Sirius). We didn't go to Hascosay as the mist was right down so paddled up the coast to the pier instead and Heather went to explore Brough Lodge then drove to meet us. A nice paddle and got some coaching on forward paddling from Mark which I think will help my wrists (need to build up shoulder muscles though...) It was a bit windy and quite choppy in places, especially near the end. I'm quite pleased with how I did considering, only a few twinges from my wrists until near the end when I got quite a few more! But managed ok - and considering that was 2 days in a row and I hadn't paddled for such a long time I was really pleased.

We saw the ferry coming as we were nearly in and had to paddle the last bit quite fast to get out of the way in plenty time. Looked at the time and realised the ferry was leaving in around 15 mins. Decision time - the next ferry is not for another 2 hours - can we find something to do for 2 hours in Fetlar? No? As Mark put it "Escape from Fetlar...." :-) So we did a very quick shuttle to get my car, got changed and into the ferry queue with about 5 mins to spare!!

We arrived in Yell about 4pm feeling really quite light headed and spaced. Ah - none of us has had any lunch, lack of food would explain it! So we all went to the Wind Dog cafe. I had another really good baked tattie - an expensive one this time - a whole £4 :-) Again no frills food, no wee side salad or even a slice of tomato, but good, basic, tasty and cheap - apart from Heather's cake which was supposed to be crispy but was actually soggy!

At this point we headed in different directions, Mark and Heather headed for the Mid Yell shop to stock up on food (unlike the Fetlar shop, the Mid Yell one is extremely well stocked) shop then are making their way to Whalsay. I'm headed for Lerwick then Westings campsite, then hopfully Noss tomorrow.....