Press Release

18th July 2008
Hemel Hempstead Canoe Club Brave the Ocean

Six intrepid paddlers went to Hythe for a night sea kayak trip and were beset by uncharacteristically bad weather and encounter more excitement than expected. Half the group were being assessed for BCU 3 star sea kayaking and passed. It was excellently organised by Dave from the Seapoint Centre, Hythe.

Stephen and Larissa Gosling are relative newcomers to the sport and have paddled a lot on the Thames and did a safely training session on the canal with HHCC just a few days before. However they were not prepared for the adverse weather on the beach at Hythe. It required paddling out through the surf to the swell further out. Beach landing and launching is always a treacherous part of any such trip. With the winds around force 4 it was quite difficult and after several false starts and capsizes and swampings they wisely decided to cut short their trip.

The rest of the group, comprising two leaders, four paddlers from HHCC, Erika Henson, John Bennett, John Houston and Robin Oakley and one other, soldiered on. With following winds and tide the boats were pushed along making fast but rather unsteady progress. After an hour or so we entered a new man made cove. we were joined by Dave, the chief coach from the centre, who put the three BCU 3 Star candidates through their skills assessment. This entailed various manoeuvres, tows rolls and rescues. Erika was doing this despite the onset of sea sickness. There was then a break on the beach in the cover of the cove.

Meanwhile the wind had blown up more and was now against the tide making the waves very lively and dusk had fallen and it was dark.

The group paddled out and off for the return leg. It was very hard going. Thankfully the dark hid the waves but made it difficult to watch out for the occasional giant rogue breaking wave. By this stage sea sickness had Erika in its grips so Robin took her in tow. Though the Hemel paddlers worked hard, making it hard for the instructors to keep up, for the next two hours progress was slow. Looking across at dark silhouettes of buildings on the shore the paddlers could see how slow their progress was. They were fully equipped and were warm and carried plenty of food and drink, not that there was any chance of opening compartments to get food out in those conditions.

Eventually four and a half hours after departure were were still a mile from base and the instructors took the sensible decision to beach the kayaks and fetch the vehicles and motor the last bit back. Landing on the stony beach in the dark in the now quite violent surf was pretty exciting. With everyone helping each other it was accomplished without problems. The group then rested up in a storm shelter while the instructors went to collect cars.

Club chairman John Bennett commented "I was torn between worrying for the group and thoroughly enjoying myself. You can never be sure what the weather will do but we were all prepared and it was wise of the leaders to stop us when they did."

After unloading the kayaks and changing the Hemel crew caught last orders for fish and chips, in high spirits, see the picture above, before the long drive home.They got back in the early hours and John Bennett was then off to Symonds Yat to help on a white water trip!