GS blue

The first time Paul joined us on a paddle at 3 Anchor Bay, I realised that this guy was either pretty hardcore or insane. It was a windy day with bigger than average swells. From land it looked manageable but once we hit the water, it was rather hairy. Going in was tough as you had to punch through a pretty messy break in a narrow rock channel and then face the wind and swells causing havoc. All the time while paddling in, my mind was more worried about the landing afterwards than the current conditions which were tippy to stay the least. After about 1 km we decided to turn around rather as it felt like the conditions were deteriorating . Navigating that channel out with wind and waves storming down on you was as bad as I envisaged. I let Paul go first so that I could help him if anything went wrong, at one stage he came insanely close to some rocks on the left but he managed to correct himself. During all this excitement he managed to remain calm and collected without a sign of worry. At this stage it is important to bear in mind that Paul had bought his first kayak about 2 weeks prior to our meeting and had paddled about 3 times including his training session. In retrospect we where rather foolish to take on these conditions with inexperienced members but at the same time we gained respect for the sea and its power.

Many a blade has broken the surface of the water since then. We often go "big boat surfing", as we like to call it, most regular paddles end up being a surf sessions anyway. We enjoy the surf aspect of kayaking so much that we even persuaded each other to do a surf kayaking course late last year. This course taught us some new skills which improved our our surf and sea kayaking confidence. Prior to the course, Paul could not roll at all and I managed to roll every other time. After the course we both roll quite successfully and most importantly quite reliably.

So when the wind is blowing and that urge to paddle gets too much, we go hunt some surf and if there is no surf, we practice our rolls, but we always get wet in the end.

p.s. I have come to the conclusion that Paul is mostly hardcore with a touch of insanity - great combination for exciting times