All Girls Sea Kayaking Trip

Devon, England – July 2006

With the demise of Playboating, it seems that it’s now acceptable to talk openly and without fear of reprisals about other deviant forms of kayaking on this website. Lord FQ has handed the baton over from the dark side of marathon – we saw his pointy boat and raised him another.

Initially billed as a Girlie Trip, I somehow managed to worm my way in after some cajoling of Mrs FQ, and was subsequently nattered at mercilessly for 48 hours. For the second weekend in a row yet another 6.00 am start was also seemingly required to avoid paddling against the flow when the Bristol Channel hacks off to Ireland.

A slight altercation with the beardy weirdo parking attendant at Combe Martin kicked off proceedings, but we were soon on our way after he talked himself out of his parking fee. To drag out a short story, we boshed off the first day pretty quickly in order to get to Lynton in time for chips and medals.

Our selected campsite was a pretty isolated shingle beach. You would think that having had to get up in the night on various rivers around the world to haul the boats further up the bank, we’d have figured out how far up the tide would come. Clearly not. With the sea a full meter and half from our heads, a small retying was needed at 6.00 am.

The shuttle back from Porlock Weir goes up and over the bleddy steep Porlock Hill. The girls were dispatched and returned two hours later (don’t ask). Luckily the local cliff rescue team took pity and bolstered a man’s spirits with local scrumpy. Next destination Lundy.

Girls – Emma and Marc Mugrat (sic), Elaine FQ, Helen Brosno.

Article: M Mugrat