Ups and Downers in Kayaking

After a fine start June seems to be ending with a bit of a whimper. I had managed about 20 miles including a nine mile jaunt with the club down to Isleworth... again. It also included another near ducking as a RNLI lifeboat got in the way of a landing on the foreshore as it faffed about in the shallows right in front of the only available spot on the beach for landing without any apparent concern for the half dozen kayaks having to queue up to get out of the water.

The highlight of the month was a rather longer paddle along the complete length of the Wey, and on down the Thames to Hampton to complete almost exactly a 'marathon' distance of 26 miles. In the end there was only four takers for the outing which I found a little surprising for a 'touring' club, but I suppose that various holiday arrangements had got in the way for the usual suspects for this kind of event.

We split into two groups, slow and not so slow, I still being counted as one of the weaker paddlers, and myself and partner launched from Godalming town bridge at just gone 9 am on the Saturday morning. The faster pair launched at about 9-45 am with the intention of joining up sometime before encountering Guildford. What none if us knew was that torrential rain during the night had got the river well up and flowing fast and turbulently enough for the red danger warning boards to be put up later in the morning and the river closed to traffic.

We didn't encounter the warnings until Trigg's lock, well past Guildford. Meanwhile we were having a fine old time riding the current, which was fast but didn't otherwise cause any real handling problems. In fact we weren't caught by the other pair until we stopped for a pre-planned  rest period at Pyrford and waited nearly a half hour until they turned up.

We passed out onto the Thames at Shepperton lock and began to encounter choppy conditions whipped up by a fairly gusty wind and by a number of pleasure boats containing drunks generally making a nuisance of themselves. We made the distance eventually after about eight and a half hours, including portaging and stops. So, although the overall time wasn't great, and wouldn't get me home on a DW stage under ten hours, it did seem fairly encouraging that I had completed the distance and without feeling 'completely' exhausted.I also found that I had managed two individual miles under twelve minutes for the first time, although that has more to do with the current.

... and now I'm beginning to get really hacked off.