Freesteel Blog » Catching up with home

Catching up with home

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 at 11:43 am Written by:

Back in the UK, with a slight diversion via Diss to work on the UN thing, and get taken out for a short sailboat trip up the Norfolk Broads to get a terrible headache from a mere one pint of beer at lunchtime. I still had a headache the evening of the following day when I went to bed in Liverpool. God this is annoying. It’s easy not to drink when it hurts that much.

God damn it. I left my skates on the train in Denmark. This pissed me off more than anything that could have happened. They worked really well. I can’t just get another set. Now back home, the allotment has been dug, the grass cut, Tuesday yoga has been attended, and I’m still living off supernoodles because I’m too lazy to go shopping and there’s no one to cook for. Becka meanwhile is still caving in China. I think she’s in safe hands, don’t you?

Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to the sea, and planning a sensible kayak diving trip to Scotland. This follows last year’s successful kayak diving trip round Plymouth. Becka will of course try to get out of it, having taken so many days away caving, while leaving me at home to work alone without any holidays, which doesn’t matter. Also, we’re going to try and visit one of her schoolfriends near Skye who is a long-distance Alaskan sea-kayaker, and an ex-Liverpool person in Inverness who wants a ride on our kayaks, in spite of the odds.

I have already planned the first stop on our tour, a trip out of Brighouse Bay, which is featured in this sea-kayaking podcast, and nowhere else. After years of doing without, I’ve gained a habit of buying all guidebooks that are remotely relevant, and found that the Scottish Sea Kayaking – Fifty Great Sea Kayak Voyages doesn’t list anything within a hundred miles of it, and diving isn’t considered anywhere in the bay, due to the fact that it’s all mud flats. However, my secret marine charts show a short clear bit of deeper water on the coast there. It’s not clear on the coast over at Hestan Island.

Internet researching is amazingly time-consuming since you don’t know what’s there, and there is so much incomplete information. Mind you, there’s advice:

When an isolated rock or reef has an occasional dumping wave break onto it, it is known as a ‘ boomer’. What happens is that the water pulls away from the reef, exposing the top, then the next wave arrives and the crest explodes onto the bare rock. This is probably the worst place you could be with your kayak.

These are the last years of the climate to which we have become acclimatized, as we head off the scale. I was awake late on the boat back from Denmark. The bioluminescence of the plankton in the bow wave was so bright I could see it on the ceiling.

2 Comments

  • 1. Broads boat hire replies at 25th January 2008, 4:50 pm :

    The broads are one of the most beautiful places in the UK and a must visit. I appreciate any information I can get in and around the subject. Thanks for the info!

  • 2. Broads boat hire replies at 25th January 2008, 4:50 pm :

    The broads are one of the most beautiful places in the UK and a must visit. I appreciate any information I can get in and around the subject. Thanks for the info!

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