Monday, October 17, 2011

Another Ecrehous Visit

It has been a great year for visiting the Ecrehous.  Yesterday's trip was the 8th of the year, although it has not been a memorable summer weather wise, there have been a number of weekends which have co-incided with light winds.
A dawn start was required to take maximum advantage of the pre high water tidal window.  We were swept south on the last of the flood bit then carried north onto the reef, arriving just before high water.
As we sat on the reef we could see that whilst we were mostly in the sunshine Jersey was largely covered in low cloud.  Unusually we were the only visitors on the Ecrehous, apart from one other person, although we did share the surrounding waters with a few Grey Seals and a couple of distant dolphins.
As we ate an early lunch it wasn't hard to imagine that this was likely to be our last warm day of 2011, so we absorbed so warming rays before crossing back to Jersey.  A much easier paddle than anticipated, we were back at St Catherine's in just 90 minutes, celebrating another enjoyable days kayaking with the inevitable ice cream. 
 Sunrise en route to the reef.
 John and Derek heading towards the Ecrehous.  The French coast is just visible on the left hand side of the picture.
 The kayaks resting just above the high water mark. The waves on the tombolo were a slight disappointment today, the shape of the shingle bank had been altered from a few weeks ago, which probably accounted for the lack of waves. 
 As we sat in quite reasonable sunshine to the south west we could see the island was covered in low cloud.  We had clearly selected the best part of the Baliwick of Jersey to visit this particular Sunday.
We waited for the tide to drop to allow us to cross to Blanche Ile, where we had decided to eat lunch.
It was hard to imagine that we were half way through October as we sat in the warm sunshine.  Another memorable day on the Ecrehous.

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