Freesteel Blog » Solway Kayak Dive

Solway Kayak Dive

Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 5:04 pm Written by:


A quick logging of another weekend (13 October) before it gets lost down the memory hole. Becka and I drove up to Brighouse Bay on the north coast of the Solway Firth to try a little bit of kayak diving after it had been sold so well by an episode of Simon Willis’s kayak podcast.

I’d say it was a little bit over-sold, but we got there and ticked it off. I made one dive along the cliffs to the west of Brighouse Bay where the sea charts advertized a deep (15m) area. It was actually rocky, not sandy, like the rocks of the cliffs above water (at a depth of 9m at high tide) with many prawns in the crevices. But the visibility was — as anticipated — atrocious. A Geordie who was with a group of jet-skiers in the bay when we came back in said the visibility can be great, but wouldn’t be because of the westerly winds blowing in all week. He didn’t say any more. Becka tried to have a dive, but I’d accidentally put a big hole in her suit the night before as I was trying to saw off and replace her leaking inlet valve (Northern Diver seem to apply glue to the threads) which I didn’t notice until she got into the water and bubbles came out of her chest.


That evening we locked a bike up in Gatehouse of Fleet, and the next morning paddled out opposite Ardwall Island, round and landed on Murray’s Isles (picture), and then in up the water of the fleet with the flooding tide.

Becka thought this was all pretty lazy, but we stopped on a couple of beaches along the way to see a pillar and a chapel before carrying on in up the canal.



The canal was swampy with lots of swamp gas bubbling up everywhere as we did a nice river amble. Not once did we see another canoe, rowing boat, or sailing boat at any time, which I found surprising. I fell asleep in the park as she cycled back to fetch the car. We ate a huge dinner at her parent’s house in Lancaster both on Friday on the drive up, and on Sunday on the drive down.

1 Comment

  • 1. Emilio replies at 24th April 2008, 7:29 am :

    bravo..
    great..
    on the 2nd photo i thought you’re lost in the wild.. lol
    i like the view on your 1st photo..

    ahmmmm. i like kayaking..

    thanks for the post!

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