skip to main |
skip to sidebar
After a hectic and intense month of sea kayaking, and having finally got my Five Star Sea award in the bag, the rest of May has been spent chilling out and doing what I fancy. This mainly consisted of climbing a lot, plus a rather nice surf session shredding and carving it up in my Marauder surf kayak with good friend Jonathan Cowell. As the weather was mostly hot and sunny for the latter part of May, I was able to get out and do some bouldering, plus a fair amount of Deep Water Soloing. I climbed a couple new DWS routes at Berry Head - Soul to Soul, and Deep House, as well as scoring a few superb sessions over Torquay - climbing the Plimsole Line and Watchtower traverses, plus beasting myself doing laps on the Aqua Marina wall. On the very last day of May I spent a few hours climbing on London Arch, Torquay, trying a 7a+, and taking my first splashdowns of the season. It was good to fall in the sea again, despite the water still being a tad cold and getting hit by a hold snapping off! Oops!
As for June, well I'll carry on with my theme, and see where the fancy takes me. Hopefully it'll involve more DWS, and more splashdowns. ;)
The last four weeks or so have been really hectic for me, after I'd finally got round to booking my Five Star Sea Kayak Leader assessment with Nigel Dennis at Sea Kayaking UK in Anglesea, North Wales. Trying to juggle Navigation work, night paddling, rough water paddling and kit preparation, ontop of my climbing training and regular paid work was very tiring for me, and before I knew it I was off on the long drive North to Holyhead in Wales. I had a few days prior to the assessment, up there, that I spent surfing and playing around in the powerful tiderace of Penrhyn Mawr in my Xcite, as well as night paddling around Holyhead Harbour, just to get used to the area and prepare myself for the assessment itself. The weather came in really bad for the assessment, and day one saw us leading groups in 5*+ conditions with F5-7 winds and big seas. It was a tough day, but we all returned safely at the end of the session, and met up later that evening for the night navigation exercise, that went very smoothly indeed due to the wind luckily dropping right off for us. Day two was the personal skills day with a bit more leadership thrown in and some scenarios to put us through our paces. The wind had eased to a F4-5 providing much more reasonable conditions in the tidal flows at our chosen location for the day, and the day went really well for me not only in the paddling, but also on returning to Anglesea Outdoor centre where I was told I had passed the assessment. I was so pleased, and relieved, to have finally gained my Five Star Sea Kayak Leader award. Woohoo! :D Now, safely back in Torbay, it's time to chill out for a bit, before hitting the climbing training once more in preparation for this season's DWS. Can't wait! Bring it on! :)
