Sea Kayaking Memories

Whilst looking through thousands of slides last week, as I was trying to sort out a talk for a 60th birthday celebration, I came across a number of slides which brought back memories of sea kayaking over the last 30 plus years.

Also makes me think about how sea kayaking images have been lost as we have all made the switch to digital.

Holyhead Harbour at dawn towards the end of August 1980.  We are leaving for Ireland.  All was going well until 2 kayaks the same colour as ours were washed ashore under South Stack, resulting in a search being launched.  We were located by a helicopter, followed quickly by a lifeboat.  It took the edge of our trip so we returned to Holyhead.

Crossing to Bardsey in July 1981.  The hatches on my new Nordkapp were held in place by string.  My kayak was one of the first to be fitted with the new hatches, unfortunately the compound was unstable resulting in the rims collapsing inwards.  Valley were great and replaced the hatches without question.

A welcome beer in Carteret, France.  There were significant restrictions placed on kayakers who wished to paddle to France but in April 1984 we were given permission to cross from Jersey to France, by the French authorities, and here we are celebrating our passage to our nearest neighbour.

Surfing at St Ouen's in 1985.  KW7's were the craft of the day.  Still a great general purpose kayak.

Pete on a rocky beach in northern Norway, in August 1986.  We only had 2 days in 4 weeks when we were unable to paddle because of the weather.  We were heading towards Nordkapp.

Beachy Head Lighthouse in 1986.  Probably the most dramatic headland on the south coast.

Cap Frehel is one of the largest headlands in northern Brittany.  We paddled the length of the north Brittany coast back to St Malo before jumping on the ferry back to Jersey.

Its not everywhere that Osprey's nest on navigation marks.  Penobscot Bay, Maine 1995.

 An arch on Gola, off the north west coast of Ireland in 1996.  Exploring the uninhabited islands was a great way to spend a couple of weeks.

Some more nostalgia

In 1975 Colin Mortlock led a six man expedition along the arctic coast of Norway, covering over 500 miles from Bodo to Nortdkapp and slightly beyond.  Many people see this as the first modern style sea kayaking expedition, with similarities to the mountaineering developments which were taking place in the Himalaya's.  There were significant developments in terms of equipment, not least the Nordkapp sea kayak designed by Frank Goodman but I believe that the Wild Water 5 pocket buoyancy aid which was standard equipment for sea kayakers for years had its origin in this expedition.  It was seen as such a ground breaking trip that it was serialized in the Sunday Telegraph magazine.

I was fortunate that 11 years later in 1986 I was able to follow part of their route, from Tromso as far as Honnigsvag, a small town just past Nordkapp.  In contrast to the unsettled weather experienced by Colin Mortlock and his fellow paddlers, we were really fortunate.  For 26 days out of 28 we had light winds, higher than average temperatures and long hours of sunshine.  Evenings were frequently spent sitting around in t-shirts although we were quite a way north of the Arctic Circle.

As we passed under the cliffs of Nordkapp (307 metres or 1,007 feet) in flat calm conditions it was hard not to think of the sailors who had traveled these waters as part of the Arctic Convoys which were heading too and from the northern ports in the former Soviet Union during the Second World War.

This was a memorable trip with other members of the Jersey Canoe Club, we were fortunate with the weather, which we took full advantage of.

 Crossing to the Lyngen Peninsula, the tip of which is at 70 degrees north.  This was a spectacular area and we were blessed with superb weather.  One morning it was so hot we went swimming.

 The island of Fugloy towards midnight.  I always said that one day I would return to paddle to this spectacular island.  26 years on it is an ambition which is still waiting to be achieved.

 Paddling into Lyngen Fjord.

 Most of the time we were blessed with settled warm weather.  In 4 weeks we only lost two days paddling to poor weather, and they were consecutive days, when we were close to Oksfjord.

We woke one morning to particularly settled weather and seized our opportunity to paddle around the most northerly point of Europe.  Nicky and myself approaching Nordkapp.