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Endurance Kayak, Leith Diary
Activity: Adventurous Training
Location: Leith, Scotland |
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Day 1
Route: North Berwick-Bass Rock-North Berwick
The day really started when Mike Devlin, Director of Coaching for the BCU (British Canoe Union) and our level 5 Coach for the weekend and Endurance’s ex Flight Commander Mark Jameson arrived; so our group was complete.
It was a typical Scottish summer’s day. Moderate-fresh winds from the west, overcast with the occasional spot of rain. However this did not dampen our enthusiasm.
   
Russ, BV, Towny, Robbie
After a quick brief on techniques and the importance of `warm ups’ from Mike, we got on the water. Five of us in total: Robbie Nash, a Hydrographer and Meteorologist from Endurance, Mark `Towny’ Townsend our current Medical Assistant from the ship, Mark Jameson Endurance’s ex-Flight Commander who is also known as `BV’, Mike and myself Richard `Russ’ Abbot. We had every base covered, navigation, weather, medical cover and of course the technical skills of one of the top coaches in the country, so we were perfectly prepared to get on the water.
We started with a short session on forward paddling and the importance of edging your boat to assist in turning and maintaining a straight course. This may sound trivial to those of you who are not experienced paddlers but the importance of efficient forward paddling using the smallest amount of energy possible cannot be underestimated when travelling long distances in a kayak.
Once Mike was happy with our technique, having made some fine adjustments where they were needed and set off. On our passage to Bass Rock we had a following wind. The sea which had looked very calm from the shore was actually quite choppy once we were out on it. This combined with a following sea made balance and the maintaining of our course relatively difficult. No one capsized, but we all caught some waves, which was great fun.
Bass Rock
 After paddling for about an hour, we got to Bass Rock. According to Mike this is “one of the best places in the whole of Britain for bird life” with a large range of Gannets and Sea Gulls nesting there. He wasn’t wrong as paddling around the rock was an amazing sight. The high cliffs, which from the shore line look white are in fact thousands of white seabirds – there are so many of them, you can’t see the grey rock underneath! We found a spot to land on the eastern side and after a short walk ashore, we headed back out to sea on our return journey.
This time we were paddling into the wind which again provides its own challenges. Obviously we are battling against the wind but this in many ways is easier than going down wind or a cross the wind as the kayak is much more stable and the paddler feels far more in control.
So now with waves crashing over our bows we paddled back to the mainland. Towny came up with a plan to navigate back which we all executed remaining in a tight group at all times. Again this takes concentration throughout as it is easy to become obsessed with your own paddling and forget where other people are, especially as tiredness sets in.
We finally made it back to the shelter of dry land where Mike gave us one more task. He told us all to hold our paddles with our hands close together and then far apart. Mike then said to paddle leaning forwards and then leaning backwards. This demonstrated the importance of maintain good hand positioning at all times and good straight body posture.
This skill was emphasised when we got back ashore as BV did Eskimo rolls whilst the rest of us were given small stones by Mike and told to aim them at BV. The problem as that we were not allowed to move our bodies, only our arms. While we all thought we would be able to hit BV, without the power of the muscles in our bodies we didn’t manage to hit him at all. Mike had obviously done this before! You could try this at home but I wouldn’t recommend practicing near a greenhouse!
Once packed away, we all went for a well deserved cup of tea and talked about the day’s paddle and what we found to be easy or difficult. But we were on our way; our training had well and truly started.
Day 2
Route: Queensferry-Firth of Forth Bridge-Queensferry
 
Rob and Mike – our 5 star Coaches
The team was joined today by another Level 5 Coach, Rob who was able to provide additional instruction for all those participating in ENDURANCE 66 SOUTH.
The day focused on paddling skills with all parties practicing their forward and back ward paddling, draw stroke, sculling draw and rolling. This took up most of the morning session leaving the afternoon free for a `try paddling’ event.
The Captain and Logistics Officer
The try paddling event was an invitation to the Ship’s Company to try paddling. It saw the Captain and the Logistics Officer take to the water. They were both very proficient despite the fact that the Captain had not paddled for over 20 years and the Logistics Officer had never paddled before. Mike and Rob soon had everyone paddling like they had been on the water for years. Once Mike and Rob were happy that everyone was able to paddle efficiently, we went for a short paddle across the Firth of Forth.
Everyone returned safely proclaiming the joys of kayaking and looking forward to the next time they could get on the water. Amazingly, there wasn’t one person who did not improve a single aspect of their paddling.
Day 3
Route: Queensferry-Inch’ Holm-Inchmickery-Inch Keith-Leith Harbour
Map of training route for day 3
We left relatively early on Sunday so that we would be on the water whilst the tide was still on the ebb (going out). The weather was slightly colder than the previous days, but we knew we would soon warm up once we were on the water.
We set out and started with some warm up exercises, again with forward paddling and some sculling draw strokes to move the boats sideways. We then set off practicing our edging and our trunk rotation as we went. Everything that we had recently learnt with Mike and Rob would be tested today as we were going to paddle 16 miles, our furthest trip to date.
We started by paddling under the two Firth of Forth Bridges, the road bridge and the railway bridge. They are a kilometre apart, which is quite far when paddling but they seem really close when you look at these two giant structures. After negotiating some strange tidal streams that operate around these bridges (some which flow at 90º to the coast) we were well on our way to our first stop which was Inch’ Holm. This is a beautiful little Island approximately 4 miles east of the bridges. We would have stayed to explore the island if we had the time but unfortunately `tide and time wait for no man’. So we kept paddling after a quick chocolate bar to keep the energy levels up.
We set a course in a southerly direction towards Inchmickery which lay to the South East of our position. The idea was to paddle south allowing the tide to take us down river to our intended destination. Sure enough after about 30 minutes paddling we made it to Inchmickery and by now we were really starting to feel a level achievement. We continued our paddle around the island’s southerly tip and headed east for Inch Keith, our final island on this passage.
Our passage to Inch Keith was fabulous. I had a porpoise appear just in front of the bow of my kayak, before quickly swimming off to the south. It was as if he liked the fact that we were in his domain with only our own steam to power us. I also had my first sighting of a puffin in the wild.
While I have been to the Antarctic and seen many species of rare bird and animals that have not seen by many people, seeing a puffin for the first time was amazing. We reached Inch Keith just as the tide was about to turn. This was perfect timing as the tidal stream had made it easier for us to paddle with the tide and reach Inch Keith and now it would help us paddle the relatively short distance back to the ship as well. I do love it when a plan comes together!
After a bite to eat we headed back in a southerly direction back towards Leith Harbour and towards the ship. As we approached the harbour we were greeted with our very own flying display by the ship’s helicopters performing aerobatics, which pleased Mike and Rob immensely as they had missed the ship being open to visitors because the International Polar Conference was taking place.
However their delight was short lived because as soon as the helicopters had finished we realised that our passage back to the ship would be harder than we thought as there was no obvious place to land near the ship, so we had to haul our kayaks out of the water and carry them over the lock to launch them again in the basin. Easier said than done when the drop into the basin is about 8ft! However we managed it and we were soon paddling back across to harbour to the ship.
BV, Russ, Towny and Mike Devlin (BCU Coach) beside HMS Endurance
It had been a brilliant day. A real test of our stamina and skill and we were working well as a team and ready to plan our next bit of training.
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