Thursday, 4 September 2008

Across the lough on a kayak

I paddled from Bangor to Carrick Fergus this morning. It's about 7km across the Belfast Lough.

I was planning to do it on my birthday (I have to find adventurous things to drown out the feeling of getting older) but the weather was fine this morning so I went rather than risking bad weather in a couple of days.

I thought it would take almost 2 hours but I got there in an hour and 5 minutes - I must be fitter than I thought. In fact I got there half an hour before Gillian arrived to pick me up.

Paddling in the Irish Sea requires a wetsuit - the water temperature is about 5 deg C which is like the rivers in the 'berg (in the winter). I wear one without arms because it's too constricting to paddle with a full suit.



This is me paddling off - without the seat! I forgot to grab it when we left and I had numb legs and a froze bottom all the way over.

1 comment:

Dee said...

Good going Pete, I assume you posted this. Hilmar says he hopes you weren't the butt of all jokes after that.