Last June, on my way to my camping weekend in north Devon, I bought an inflatable kayak from the the magical middle aisle at Lidl. I didn’t try it out in Devon; I have enough sense to recognise that water wild and fierce enough for surfing isn’t going to be good for inflatable kayaking and neither is a bit of sea I’m unfamiliar with.
The trouble was that I googled my kayak in my excitement and stumbled on a forum of professional kayakers, people who knew boats and knew water and knew the potential for ignorant people like me, who’ve bought inflatable kayaks, to get into serious trouble because we don’t know enough about boats or the sea. Suddenly the kayak looked like a really bad idea.
I’m not totally ignorant about the sea. I’ve kayaked before, I’ve sailed, I live in an area where our local newspaper regularly details cliff- and sea-related catastrophes. There was one the very morning I was eyeing the kayak thoughtfully. And one thing I know about the sea is that it’s big and powerful and murderous and no one should ever think they know enough to be safe. So I chickened out of trying the kayak. I picked a bit of sea that seemed safe and sheltered and went out on a guided trip on a real, solid, plastic kayak instead with a professional in charge.
Now I knew this bit of sea was ok. It’s a sheltered bay, it’s shallow a really long way out, knee-depth max right the way out until you’re level with the end of the cliffs and waist-high a little further out, even at high tide and there are safety boats and guided tours – which means in the event of an emergency, there are professionals in reach most of the day. As long as the weather is good, this is a fine bit of sea to try my ridiculous boat on.
Next I bought a buoyancy aid. I’m not going to go for full safety equipment – no lifejacket or flares or VHF radio – but a buoyancy aid seemed a an absolute minimum basic requirement of setting out to sea in a blow-up boat. I also invested in a wetsuit, because it’s time I had one of my own and the one the kayaking centre used was just so nice.
With these precautions in place – a test run in my chosen location, a buoyancy aid and a wetsuit – I picked a nice windless day and took my kayak to the beach.
It turns out when it says it needs a foot pump, it really does need a foot pump. The car’s electric pump didn’t work at all. I inflated all five chambers in order, inflated the seats and splash guards and tied everything on. Wetsuit on. Buoyancy aid on. Carry this enormous thing down a narrow zigzagging track to the beach. And then launch.
If you’ve never set out to sea in an inflatable kayak, you have no idea how unstable it feels. This is definitely a canoe. I sat inside it, enclosed by high gunwales that made me feel like I was sitting at the bottom of a well. But from onshore the whole contraption rides high in the water, making it pretty top heavy. I kind of fell into it, pushed off from the beach and wobbled my way south for maybe fifty yards.
And then my seat back deflated. Suddenly I’m almost lying on my back. You can’t paddle from that position, especially in a high-sided craft. Neither can you do much to adjust your position. Push yourself up and you push the blow-up boat down. Water sloshed over the side. Grunting and groaning and swearing, I hauled myself back to shore to reinflate the seat and tie it in place more firmly.
The other trouble is that it’s inflatable. It’s lightweight and utterly at the whim of the sea. That’s what makes inflatables so dangerous. Fortunately the sea wanted to drag me gently to the shore rather than the Channel but it also preferred me to go south over north. I could paddle quickly and easily down the beach. I’d cracked it, I’d figured it out. And then I turned – gybed, stern through the wind? – and tried to go back up and it just didn’t want to go.
Now I knew what the triangular cushion was for. I hadn’t bothered inflating it, it’s not attached to anything and it’s just to go under the forward passenger’s feet. I was the forward passenger. I tried sitting in the stern and the imbalance of weight meant I couldn’t even push off from the beach. That cushion is meant for me to push my feet against, in the same way that the grooves are cut in the real kayak. You can paddle more easily if you can plant your feet firmly somewhere.
It’s a fun toy. It’s very pleasant to paddle off shore and then lounge in it. Less pleasant if the lounging is forced by less-than-rigid inflating of the seat. Disembarking is less fun. The only way I could figure was to beach the canoe in the shallows, put my hands in the water and then fall onto hands and knees. So glad I had the wetsuit, especially after spotting a washed-up jellyfish.
I always used to say I was an earth person. My star sign is fire but I’m not fire. I’m not air. I’m not water. I’m one of Dwalin’s folk. I am mud and rock and gold. But… I spent a lot of last summer on the water. I went kayaking. I went inflatable kayaking. I rowed an old-fashioned wooden rowing boat down a river and fought pitched battles with reeds and hedges. I took my Rangers kayaking and paddleboarding. I considered having surfing lessons. I went to an outdoors pool half a dozen times. It was a glorious summer on the water, an old-fashioned summer of “messing about on the river” and if I don’t get out this summer, at least I had 2019.
If you’d like to throw me the price of a hot chocolate to warm up after going out to sea for your entertainment, I have a Ko-fi here.
I blog every Monday and Thursday – Monday’s blog is a throwback right back to my first ever snowsports experience back in 2010 so come back here to see how many bones I broke in my first attempt to snowboard on real snow.