We had a compass bearing to head across the loch to Inchcruin for the first target – that was when I discovered my compass wasn’t luminous as I had thought, but I had my red astronomy light to shine on it. And I had the others in front glowing away in their respective colours – anyone looking from a boat would have particular trouble working out what sort of vessel we were. One of the things to remember, which I didn’t, was that when you stop paddling to look at the map so turning your head torch on – that you lose your night sight (which is why pirates used to wear eye patches) and more importantly that you haven’t actually stopped moving and so run into rocks in the dark. The markers were seabirds with a French accent as Sebastien had organized the race (and well organised too) with a band of helpers from the club (not part of the race) to lay the markers and pick them up the next day in deteriorating conditions.

Gliding across a silent loch which was like a mirror reflecting a half moon and clouds was magical – it was like paddling across the clouds with the only light coming from the odd towns along the bank and burning fires from beaches. One boat had Stairway to Heaven blasting out cutting through the silence and as we paddled past changed it to a classical operatic piece to appear more upmarket than they really were. We came across a rival team in the dark and realised after 5 minutes of fruitless searching that they were deliberately hogging the place where the marker was – a few paddle strokes and they were on their way. We had gathered enough and were over our 2 and a half hours deadline so paddled briskly back and onto the beach to change out of our wet dry suits and grab wine and beer. Ian and Trish had to paddle back to their caravan once the design flaw of using wooden supports for the BBQ revealed itself – everyone brought more food than it was possible to eat and merry banter with convivial company filled any quiet moments with laughter and jolliness.

We all retired to our tents to spend a chilling night before enjoying the compost toilet and breakfast which in my case was a sushi selection picked up at Harthill service station on the way up. More bantering and then dressing up in dry suits and an hour spent loading the kayak I paddled back to Balmaha with a wave helping me on my way and landed to spend another hour unpacking the kayak. A jolly chap arrived and plonked his kayak in the water and left with the words ‘I had an hour course last week’ – I waved him goodbye and crossed myself.

The plan is to have a winter kayak down a sea loch with each of us bringing coal and logs and whisky for a night in a bothy. Can’t wait.

Photos are here