The Trouble with Sea Kayaking

I'm quite an untidy person but it's not generally something that upsets me a lot. I do, however, make quite an effort to keep all my paddling stuff together; it makes the mornings an awful lot easier. Unfortunately it never seems to work- there is always something missing. In addition, I'm reasonably good at trying to soak all the briny stuff out of my gear after paddling. This gets to the stage of, fairly regularly, washing the car to get the sand off.
The upshot of all this is that a short day paddling can mean 10% of the time in the boat and the other 90% packing and unpacking. Today was a bit like this. Are there people who could be paid to do this? I need someone a bit like a home help but to get me ready to go out of doors. There seems to be a definite gap in the market here. Maybe there are au pairs who hate children but could clean all my kit for me.
This was a short day, Aberdour and round Inchcolm, but I have spent the last few hours cleaning up.
There was a loose plan to meet Ken and Sarah at the Silver Sands beach in Aberdour. I was there slightly early, and they were slightly late, so I ended up paddling over to Inchcolm myself. It was a busy day for ships.



I was happy to give way to the Moritz Shultz heading out of Braefoot Bay.



There were some climbers out at Hawkcraig, one of the even wearing shorts.




Inchcolm was looking quite spring like, and with no warden present, I was able to go for a wander. There is quite a crop of wild wallflower.






From the top of the wee hill I spotted Ken and Sarah heading for the west of the island. I ran down to my boat and gave chase. They thought they were chasing me (having spoken to another kayaker earlier), and I thought I was chasing them, so it was quite a quick circumnavigation before we met up. I really ought to start using my radio more often- it would save a lot of effort.



After a wee nosey in some rocks,



we headed back over to admire the harbour houses in Aberdour.

Blustery weather on the Forth

Ken had arranged a paddle for five of us today. I looked out of the window in the morning to find horizontal snow, then settled back into bed after texting Ken to inform him of the fact. Much to my horror I got a message back to say we were still going.
The rendezvous was at Silver Sands at Aberdour, reached by driving through a blizzard. A car was left at we set of to the put in at North Queensferry harbour.



At this point the weather brightened, and the wind dropped for a while. Bizarrely there was a ticker tape welcome to the bridges as lumps of snow blew off the cables and towers. Luckily none were big enough to hurt too much.



We rounded the point towards Inverkeithing Bay in sheltered water, then headed downstream towards Inchcolm. Here the wind picked up to a good force 6. The following sea made for an exhilarating and quick ride down to the picnic spot on the beach at the Abbey. This was Sandy's first sea trip, and the feeling of getting airbourne over the waves made it a memorable one! Our picnic was repeatedly interrupted by Ken's great white whale of a kayak blowing out to sea. Oddly enough, it was Sarah and I who kept jumping in to to get it.



The return to Aberdour needed a big ferry glide against the wind. Some lumpy seas again made this hard work, and it was a bit of a relief when the point came to turn and simply blow downwind past Hawkcraig Point. Soon after arrival the sleet arrived again, and we were lucky to have caught the best of the day. XC Weather made it Force 6 all day at Turnhouse, and force 7 at Dundee.