It was a new sport for me, sea kayaking. We’d first started a few months ago by replying to an advert about a sea kayaking course in North Wales.
I’d never been to North Wales so that in itself was a new adventure. The fantastic scenery we passed through on our way, pitching up at a campsite and settling in for the night before the course was due to start, butterflies, what would it be like? Would it be scary? Would I fall out of the kayak? I’d been kayaking on rivers before, but the sea was a whole different story, tides, currents, waves…
I needn’t have worried. The next day was fantastic; a beautiful warm sunny day by the sea. The kayaks were easy to set up, easy to get in and out of, and the sea was flat calm. Once we’d got the hang of how to paddle in a straight line the guide led us along the shoreline to the foot of some amazing cliffs, absolutely covered in screeching sea birds. What a sight! And even more, what a sound! You could barely hear yourself think! It was fascinating watching them coming into land on the cliff ledges with food for their chicks, then off again out to sea. The little chicks seemed to have voracious appetites, and even with both parent birds coming and going with fish as fast as they possibly could, the little ones were still shouting for more!
I couldn’t believe it when the guide said the day was over, and it was time to go back ashore, it felt as though we’d only just set out.
That was the start of our adventures on the sea. We came back several times for long weekends with the guide, each time going out into slightly more challenging conditions, practicing for all sorts of eventualities.
The following summer the guide said we were ready for a proper adventure. So we spent weeks planning our trip: what we would need to take with us for a week’s camping, what clothes we would need, what kinds of food we could carry without a fridge – and it all had to fit inside the kayaks. The only thing we would be able to get on route would be water, and any fish we might catch. Everything else had to come with us in the kayaks. At last we were packed and ready.
This time we were starting from the Isle of Mull on the West Coast of Scotland, heading out for a trip to the Treshnish Isles. We were full of excitement, but as we got closer to our meeting point, and the weather worsened, we began to be very nervous. By the time we met up with the rest of the group on the starting beach, the fog had descended and we could hardly see a few metres ahead. Surely the trip would have to be postponed, no one could paddle in that. But the guide thought otherwise, ‘No problem at all if you’re good with your compass,’ he said. (I wasn’t, but fortunately he was!)
So we set off, following a compass bearing towards Staffa, the first of the islands that we had planned to visit. It was as though we were paddling into nothingness, our little group of five kayaks banded together. We were our own little world; there didn’t appear to be anything else out there at all! The sea was choppy and we started to feel a bit queasy, probably due to having no horizon to look at to orientate ourselves.
Morale plummeted and panic started to set in: would we actually find Staffa? Were we heading out in completely the wrong direction? None of us dared admit to these fears, but I’m sure we were all feeling them – except the guide of course who had the whole thing completely under control!
Suddenly there was a kind of squeaking noise to the left of the group. Then something grey and sleek came into view, jumping in and out of the waves, then another, and another – a pod of porpoises!
The guide reckoned it was the sound of our paddles hitting the water that had summoned them.
Immediately we stopped feeling sick and worried, and were overwhelmed by the experience of being part of the porpoise pod, or was it the porpoises that were a part of our pod?
Anyway we were all one group and we were all loving it! Cheered up by this wonderful experience, the journey seemed to fly by after that. Before we knew it, land was looming out of the mist. We saw some really odd rock formations, the likes of which we’d never come across before: hexagonal pillars of rock, surrounding the entrance to an enticing cave.
We paddled a little way into the cave, Fingal’s Cave, which is the subject of a really famous piece of classical music. What a magical mysterious place to finish this amazing day’s trip.
'Time to make camp,' the guide told us.
We dragged the kayaks up the beach, set up our tents, and started cooking our dinner. We really enjoyed our meal, and especially the hot chocolate with rum afterwards by the campfire, which we felt we had definitely earned after such a day’s adventure!
The first of many to come!