For whom the 'Bells' toll

Inspired by my efforts on the Menai Challenge the previous evening and despite my early start (I was on the road to Runcorn at 06:15 to collect more stock), I got a message from Baggy, did I fancy North Stack this evening. I did, so wheels were set in motion.

By 16:30 that afternoon, I was in two minds, feeling a bit tired, busy on the phone all afternoon and dealing with folk who were collecting boats. However, Baggy arrived just after 17:00 and it would have been rude to cry off.

So we loaded up, Ben was going to try out the NEW Delphin 150 from    P & H , I was going to take out the Xtreme from Tiderace, Baggy was planning to try the Romany Surf from SKUK , but unfortunately I'd been to busy to get one in time, so he had to 'make do' with an Xcite. He wasn't disappointed.

After much faffing (phone kept ringing, people kept calling in it's the curse of being an owner/operator, you don't just clock off  and lock the door) we eventually made our way to Soldiers Point and got on the water.

The Stena Seacat was just coming in, so as we left the bay we caught it's wake and things were a little lumpy. The wind was F4, south westerly and blowing steadily as we came out, so we headed across to the cliffs to get a little more shelter.

As we paddled out the combination of the amount of time I've spent in work recently, combined with my late night and early start began to take their toll and I really wasn't feeling it. I decided to become the official photographer for the evening and get some shots of Ben & Baggy, whooping it up (and Baggy was as he found the Xcite Xciting and fun to surf).

(I need to invest in a longer lens).

The guys came into the eddy I'd been sat in snapping away in, Baggy practised his rolls and his self-rescue techniques for a little while and we became aware of some noise, which I'd attributed to a seal on the other side of the eddy, but it was a little more human sounding than that. We looked around and spotted an unnatural colour and shaped object about 70 feet above us on the cliff. After a minute or two we decided it was a person and they weren't responding to our calls. Baggy climbed up the relatively easy ground to the left to check on the casualty. I spotted something bobbing in the water directly below the casualty, it was there along with some tufts of grass that had been dislodged, as I got closer I realised it was a bottle. A bottle of Bells, almost empty, despite being in the sea.

I shouted this to Baggy, who approached the casualty and got a response asking him to "Go away".

We decided that the best course of action was to call the Coastguard & get the cliff rescue team to secure him and escort him to somewhere safer.

The Inshore Lifeboat was the first on the scene, and shortly after it arrived as the saying goes, we made our excuses and left. We didn't need to be there, we couldn't offer any further assistance all we would achieve was getting in the way and paddling back to Soldiers Point in even less light. We don't know whether he had a headache this morning, but it's logged on the RNLI site report 27.

It was dark when we landed, a quick call into the Coastguard to let them know we were safe and then calls home to wives were made as they were aware of another more serious & tragic incident being reported about a search elsewhere on the island.

I hope that in some small way our actions prevented the incident we were involved in from having a similar tragic outcome and would like to offer my condolences to the friends and family of the two men missing in the Cable Bay incident.

Slower than my previous effort...

Last night I made my second attempt on the Menai Challenge, the plan was to be on the water for 18:30 at Gallows Point, things didn't go quite as planned and we had a bigger turnout than expected. I paddled with John Willacy of Rockpool Kayaks, Pascale Eichenmuller, Aled Williams of Tiderace and Marcus Demuth of legendary expedition paddling exploits and current leader of the challenge. Barry Shaw & award winning film-maker Justine Curgenven had been paddling earlier in the day & met us at the start but decided that it wasn't the night for them to do it. Forgive me for name dropping all these folk, but I've seen a lesser schedule of speakers at some symposia in the past, I was impressed by the company I was keeping, it was like a chapter of the Who's Who of the North Wales Sea Kayak scene.

I'd done this in the Cetus MV on the previous attempt, this time I was determined to try one of the new boats we're stocking and took the Tiderace Xcape. Aled was using his Ski, the others all paddled the Rockpool Taran.

When I looked at the rest of the field, I decided rather than keeping everyone waiting for at least 45 minutes at the end, I'd simply undertake the shorter course again and if I was lucky, I might get to the end without keeping them waiting too long.

Using a handicap system, we set off at one minute intervals from Gallows Point, as the most handicapped paddler there, I went first. I set myself a goal, the biggest one of the evening, could I reach Bangor Pier just over 2km from the start before anyone else caught me. After 13 minutes, I reached the pier JUST ahead of Pascal & Marcus. It wasn't long after that that everyone had passed me. Another 3.5 Km saw me passing under Menai Bridge about five or six hundred metres behind Pascale. I dug in pressing hard on my footpegs the stopwatch was counting down and my next goal for the evening was to get there in under thirty three minutes, I blew it 33:06.

There was a lone figure stood in the middle of Menai Bridge, watching as I paddled under, years of living in London & Liverpool made me wary anticipating a dropped spit-bomb, brick or worse. All of a sudden I heard a cheery shout of "Hi Pete", it was Barry. Knowing that I wasn't about to be bricked (despite his accent) and with his words of encouragement ringing in my ears,  I picked up my pace and set myself another goal, could I reach Ynys Gored Goch before everyone else turned & began paddling up from below Pont Britannia. I managed this, just. John was already on the return leg, Aled close behind, Marcus and Pascale were just under the bridge. Another goal achieved, I was going reasonably well, but not as well as I had last time. However my motivation was high, I hadn't been paddling since my attempt on the 15th July and I was enjoying myself. I tipped my hat (metaphorically) to Lord Nelson and continued on to Plas Newydd. Moel y Don appeared and the bright lights of Y Felinheli appeared on my left, the wind picked up and slowed me a little more. My previous effort had been on a big 9.2m tide with a 25-30mph tailwind.

I paddled past Y Felinheli, on towards Plas Menai and the bright lights of Caernarfon, the wind dropped, the sun was dipping and in the last few hundred metres became aware that John was hard on my tail.

I didn't get to sit for long basking in the glory of my slower time (down by 10 minutes) before John caught up with me, and I became aware that he'd paddled 9km further than me a couple of minutes quicker, but as I explained at the time, I wasn't that bothered by my slower time, it meant that I'd had an extra 10 minutes on the water and with the amount of time I've spent on the water since my last attempt (none) that was 10 precious minutes of pure paddling pleasure, just lost in my thoughts and paddlestrokes and work was a long way from them.

If I can do it, then it goes to show that's more than in the realms of us mere mortals and not just for these paddling legends, it's a time trial, so the reality is that you're competing against yourself, but as I found out last night, you can still have fun even when you lose. Give it a go, it's better than reading about what other people have done.

Tonight, it's sunny but breezy and North Stack is running, time to try out another of our wonderful products, the Tiderace Xtreme.