Shock horror ? Kayaking

I actually witnessed a rare show of common sense from two powerboaters today.

I was out in my kayak to do a bit of exercise for a change. As I have a membership for MBC I thought I'd launch from there and use the showers on site after recovering. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my neoprene shoes and was unwilling to go without them. This meant that I had to go back home and get them.

Rather than go all the way back to MBC I settled for launching from my usual place at Oreston Quay.

The wind for today was from the East at about 5-12knots. The tide was dropping when I set off.

Initially I had planned only to do a quick run to Drake's Island and back. As I headed down river I felt good, which was probably due to the help afforded by the wind and tide. As I got clear of the Mountbatten breakwater towards Drake's Island, the sea got a little choppier. This required a bit more concentration to prevent a capsize. The chop looked like it was generated by the two river outfalls colliding.

After leaving Drake's Island I didn't really want to head straight back and thought of heading to Picklecombe Fort on the SW corner of Plymouth Sound. As I rounded the back of the island however I didn't think it was a good idea as I was feeling it in the shoulders. Straight to Fort Bovisand then.

As I got near the narrows the sea got extremely confused. The chop was coming in from at least three directions at once. Took not a little bit of concentration.

On my way across The Sound I had to shimmy round a tug, which had decided to go from an alongside tow to a short tow astern right in front of me. For a while I was concerned I was going to get a barge in the face. Luckily the wind was keeping the barge alongside the tug, rather than pushing it away, and I managed to get round it without incident.

As I neared my usual haul out beach near Bovisand, I was feeling pretty good so kept on going to Jennycliff beach instead.

Listening to the VHF I heard Longroom tell somebody that the marines were practising on the beach but that there were no restrictions. As I looked around I saw a large landing craft with what looked like a Swedish flag on the stern? This was acting as a mother craft to a couple of small inflatables and a larger jet driven boat going in and out from the beach. I had a small period of doubt as to whether I would hear "You in the yellow canoe" again, but decided to carry on until somebody told me to go away, as I was getting quite cold in the legs.

I kept in quite close to the rocks at the edge of the beach to avoid getting in anybody's way. No screaming. As I was sitting there I caught the odd bit of talking and it did indeed sound like a Scandinavian language. Swedes they are then.

On the way back to base I went via the Barbican and Mountbatten. As I hadn't been out for very long I headed up towards Laira bridge to get up under the rat racers. That is such a good feeling no matter how knackered you might be. The tide was nearly out all the way so I couldn't get any further. I don't like going into water which is too shallow as it makes it harder to get out of the kayak should anything go wrong.

When I got towards the slipway I noticed that a couple of lads had just launched their small powerboat. As I approached them, their engine died and they drifted towards the moored boats. Rather than grabbing hold to prevent them drifting further, they just fended off while they tried to get it started.

I paddled towards them and offered some assistance. I helped them back towards an empty trot to avoid damage to other boats.

Not unexpected they weren't wearing any form of buoyancy. They were perfectly amenable to accepting an offer of assistance. This was a bit of shock to start with as other people I've tried to help normally bite me head off. We had a look at the fuel system which they had admitted had been left a while. As it was a two stroke engine I didn't know too much about it. We managed to get it started for a while and they looked like they were ready to go out as per plan. Unfortunately the engine wouldn't keep going for anything longer than a few seconds. i left them to it.

Not long after getting to the slipway, I saw that they had decided not to go out after all. The reason they stated was that they didn't want to risk it. Good plan.