Survival thoughts

I've just been watching sea kayaking and white water kayaking videos on Youtube. Last night I continued reading Sea Room by Adam Nicholson, the family who own the Shiant Isles just of the east cost of Harris.

I'm mixed with feelings with extreme excitement about paddling up the western isles, and in particular the west coast of Harris/Lewis. And also feeling anxiety and fear about what might happen. What if I'm paddling along the west coast of Lewis with no landing zones and a gale picks up, sure I'm happy paddling in big swell with strong winds, but what if I have to make a surf landing?

You know when you haven't done something in a while and you start to wonder whether you're still capable of it? I feel that way about sea kayak surfing just now. Admittedly I've done a fair bit of draining and been battered around, but up there I'll be on my own. What will the weather be like? I'm just about to buy a helmet, and want to get at least 2 more days surf training before expedition. Also, 1 day of self rescues out at sea, on my own.


In Sea Room, he talks about a lot of deaths at sea around the Shiant Isles, from fisherman in sailing boats in the 19th Century. And yet all Google Earth thinks of the Shiants and the sea around them is shown above. The main cause he talks of is the wind and sea picking up unexpectedly, causing wind against tide (the tide flows fast over the shallowing waters between Shiant and Harris/Lewis) and waves emerging from the depths. The Blue Men he calls them. But these are sailing boats that couldn't right themselves, and would sink. My boat won't sink, and I can right myself, so can we as competent kayakers take on the elements more so than others? I'm also a lot better prepared than them: I can get the weather forecast anytime by listening to the radio, or speaking to the Coastguard on VHF or mobile phone - I just hope it isn't as cold as it has been in the last week (see forecast light N winds below).


My main concern is safety/survival. As much as I'd like to be, I'll have to face up to the harsh reality that I'm not invincible. The sea is the boss. It's in charge, and if it lets me on my journey safely, great, and if it's looking like it's not going to let me, I won't take the risk. But where's the line? Is that what makes life exciting - using your skills and knowledge to control the risk, and avoid the hazard? Maybe. one thing's for sure - big river kayaking really scares me, and so does the sea.

I'm not sure what will happen - I guess that what makes it an adventure. I'm really looking forward to getting immersed in the elements and seeing how it feels. It's been a whole winter without guiding, so it'll be my first long camping experience of the year. I'm looking forward to putting myself up against the elements and seeing how I cope.

So what can you eat in the Western Isles? Pigs, cattle, sheep, oats, sea weed, nettles, cockles, muscles, potatoes, carrots, fish. What else?? How am I going to survive? I guess I'll see. Whatever happens, I'm sure it'll be fun.

Oh swell...

A few days ago I paddled home round the west coast of Barra from Halaman Bay to Cleat bay. It was a personal challenge that I'd been wanting to take on for a while. The swell was probably about 5 to 6m, and I know the you often see that forecast and it's not that big when it hits the beaches, but I guess the forecast (from Windfinder.com) is for out at sea.

I packed my boat, did a final pee, and set off through the surf. Watching the houses and people shrink, I headed north, side on to the swell and wind. So I was off the west coast, coming past Borve, where there is a reef quite far out. You can see massive waves breaking over it when the swell is big. I've kind of got a phobia about big waves - phobia or healthy respect, I don't know, bit of both - so I wanted to go out and see them. So, after the session with the kids, I headed off. It was difficult to get a photo that conveyed that intimidating nature of the sea I was in, but below is my effort.

I was surprised, as I usually am, at how quickly when you are put in a new situation, you can get used to it. After I had past this reef, I was quite happy, no, more than happy, in the big swell. I was on my own. The feeling of solitude and relying purely on your own ability and judgement is awesome! I was glad to get round the corner, when I could then paddle with the wind. At one point I surfed the reflecting waves back out to sea to get away from the rocks! Trying to take a video was a wee bit awkward at the headland as I was being thrown around like a puppet by the clapotis, recovery strokes galore! I was glad to see the following at the end of the paddle...

After a wee surf in, and collecting the things from the water that weren't tied on to my deck, it was home for nice hot bath.

I'm really looking forward to the Sustainable Expeditions expedition up the Western Isles next month. Like it says on the website, I've kind of divided up training into on, and off, the water skills. So I'm not just doing these crazy paddles for the fun of it, though that is the main reason, it's also to gradually increase my comfort and ability zone so that I can handle the expedition confidently. Train hard, play easy!

Learning experiences :
1) Using charts and in particular depths, you can get a really good idea if how the waves will behave, i.e. points of shallow/reefs will break, steep sea cliffs will not have breaking waves, but will just have up/down movement. This is common sense I know, having to avoid a reef with 6m breaking swell was a very graphic illustration.
2) Everything that's on the deck needs to be tied or fixed on, or expect to loose it!
3) Sometimes videos seem to tell the story of a situation better than pictures, at least when you get the videoing right.

Anyway, enough. I'm off to read others' blogs...

Plannning and Risk Assessment

Planning and Risk Assessment

I’ve been thinking about decision making in relation to kayaking. Trying to figure out, if I have a group, what questions I should ask myself about the situation, and what order I should do things in. I like having rules for approaching things because it makes that approach simpler. I was also thinking about the minimum things that I would want to know about a group and a trip that we were going to do, and then other things beyond the minimum that I’d like to know. What I’ve come up with is this:

For any kayaking session, the first thing I want to know is my group’s experience. From that, the second thing that we will do is come up with a plan for what we’re going to do, i.e. goals. The third thing that follows on is a risk assessment for that plan or those goals. These three things are all already defined for things that are completely standard, however for other things (for example expeditions), they change here and there, so we have to adapt and be flexible. I like to categorise them in to generic (things that could happen anywhere) and specific (which are the varying components of the risk assessment).

I then thought that pretty much all our activity, whether it’s kayaking, or sitting at a computer, has goals that we want to achieve, whether that’s typing a letter, or watching the sun go down. And a risk assessment can be done for any of those goals. In my formal risk assessment, I write preventative and reactive action, in relation to a risk.

So, to cut a long story short, after formalising the process in my head, I now feel like I can approach any situation, automatically carrying out a risk assessment, and dynamically assessing the risk as the situation flows.

Looking forward to a bit of surf kayaking this weekend, as the F9 gale blowing outside whips up some swell…

Sun, Surf, and Solitude (and fire lighting)

I needed to get away for a camping trip to keep my skills up to date, and find out if I was capable of paddling around happily on my own for the expedition in May. A quick bit of packing, check of the pilot for tidal stream times, check of HW times, and weather forecasts, and the planning was complete. F6-7, gusting 8 - great! It had been blowing Westerly for a few days, so no doubt, a bit of swell. Off I went from Castlebay, not exactly sure where I would go, maybe Mingulay, maybe Pabbay, maybe Sandray, it was getting late - and I still had to find firewood and get a fire lit to cook dinner - so probably just Sandray!

After a few hours paddling, I rounded the headland and was confronted with a beach with a wee bit of foam, and a bit of surf landing was required. I counted the sets, and the period, found my moment, and went for it! It was all going well, until I felt/saw something rearing up behind me, luckily it wasn’t huge, so I ended up side surfing in the right way up. Having not approached many beaches recently that I did not set out from, I was reminded how difficult it is to judge the size of waves from the sea side rather than the beach. When I got ashore, I was a little disappointed at what I had pumped so much adrenalin around my body for!

So after my heart had calmed down, I got on to collecting and chopping firewood, finding a campsite. The axe and machete (brought the latter because I lost my knife surfing a few weeks ago) were invaluable in making tinder, kindling, and graded fuel for the fire. I had taken some of my own drier wood, and some tinder that had been dried on a metal plate on the stove at home. To cut a long story short, I couldn’t get it lit just using toilet roll and my tinder, so I had to result to petrol from my stove! Mental note: practice fire lighting! But hey, in the end I got it going, and practiced using different structures for fires. I now like the one below, using a wedge shape of thick wood which doesn’t burn too quickly, to give a structure that you can either put a pot on top of, or a wooden matrix to dry it out, the latter of which gives you simmer control for cooking - fantastic. 30mins later I was munching on pasta with pesto sauce, with fried onion and tomato.

After dinner, the solitude got to me a bit. Being alone on another island was a bit lonely at first. Eventually I resorted to talking to myself, which was surprisingly comforting, and as the evening went on, I listened to the MP3s on my phone. I had forgotten that I didn’t have credit on my sim card, so had to wait up on the hill (where I had a signal) for 2 hours for the phone call at 9pm from my folks, which I said I would make at 8pm. I was glad they phoned, because I wouldn’t have been able to sleep if I was half expecting the lifeboat to come round the corner in the middle of the night. It was a long night.

I woke up cold, thinking the waves sounded really big. Thankfully, when I got up, they were much smaller than they sounded! I had my porridge/raisin mix that been left soaking the night before, packed up, and to my horror, watched the waves getting bigger! The tide was nearing low water, and it was starting to dump. To cut a long story short, it took me 20mins to get out, after rescuing a lunch box and set of splits! But finally I made it, “woo hoo!”

I knew the swell round the west coast of Sandray was going to be awesome - I had to do it! I couldn’t resist seeing what the sea was like. The swell was indeed awesome! Scary at first, the power of it and what it could to do someone if they were in the wrong place at the wrong time felt surreal, so I kept my distance from the rocks. No photos as all I had was my phone for pictures. Progress was slow into the wind, and bouncing around in the clapotis. Out of the clapotis, it wasn’t too bad. The long rolling swell passed underneath me. Sometimes in the trough, I’m sure the swell must have been 12-15ft at times. Intimidating at first, but it was surprising how I got used to it.

So that was the exciting part. I decided against going up the W coast of Barra to get home to Northbay, into the wind and swell, and went back to Castlebay, using the east going stream. 3 hours paddling - I can’t wait till I get my own boat, so I can kit it out so that it’s comfy!

Learning experiences:
1) Always remember the IKEA bag!
2) Always make sure you’ve got credit and more than one sim card;
3) Big swell isn’t that bad when there’s nothing in its way!
4) I need to practice fire lighting with tinder;
5) When I get my own boat, I'm going to pad it out how I'd like it as soon as possible!
6) Contact tow also works well as an emergency contact between you and boat in case you come out when alone;
7) I’m going to make a general comprehensive kit list and just print it out for each trip, whether it’s a 1 night camping trip, or a 3 week expedition;

8) Daily activities like fishing, fire lighting, finding food, chopping firewood, visiting local food suppliers and internet places are going to take a lot of time out of the day! I'll probably have paddling days, and food days.

Happy paddling! I look forward to, and am off to read about others' stories…