Ollie Jay runs an adventure company in Northumberland, a TV star he had resuscitated Robson Green after his Lindisfarne wild swim and appeared on Countryfile taking the farming guy kayaking to Inner Farne. I had been out on a couple of trips with him and the sea kayak gang (circumnavigation of Lindisfarne and the Bass Rock) now there was the chance to go out to one of the best sea kayaking areas on the east coast – the Farne Islands.

On the drive to the launch site at Seahouses I turned a corner to find what looked like 100 hunting hounds with three guys on bicycles with sticks who controlled them into the left side and waved me cheerily past.

A couple of days before I had joined the Kirknewton archery club and found myself with a sore paddling arm holding the Olympic recurse bow whilst going for gold, so by Saturday I had a mouthfull of paracetemol as I dragged my kayak on a trolley over the sand dunes and down to the water edge. Exhausted already we all assembled and the extreme lady Ros said to my comment that the weather looks good ‘That means boring then’ and looked discontented.

We paddled out towards Crumstone Rock due to the tide and wind so this was one lengthy sea paddle taking us out the Outer Farne islands rather than the closer Inner Farne and island hopping. The problem I had was my rudder was continually driving me right and the way the wind was going was driving me right too so with no rudder I was heading out into the North Sea. Rudder up it was a case of lifting my left leg and paddling more on my right but progress was far more zigzag than anything. At one point a large yellow yacht looked as if it was on a collision course but we turned towards it and got friendly waves. We stopped at Crumstone after an hour and a quarter paddling and we all looked at my rudder and got it more or less working.

All this time we had a growing population of seals popping up and watching us and one curious pup came very close to my kayak at the water edge – naturally when all our cameras were tucked away. We headed out past the divers RIB towards Longstone with the tide with us we sped along then hit the tidal race – surprised to actually still remain upright I was surfing through to the eddy and tied up to the jetty and got out lunch. Ollie shouted encouragement from the water edge to the tidal race surfers and we all assembled back for lunch chatting to a couple in a dual kayak who had popped in to see us.

Ollie went off with the others to tackle the more extreme waters whilst I wandered around the lighthouse to find another 8 kayakers lunching on the other side of the island. There were now more kayakers on the water than tourist boats! One of them asked if I was a coach which was very flattering – must be the VHF radio sticking out of my PFD – he had obviously not seen me trying to get back into the kayak at the jetty where the tide had come in and I was waist high in water trying to jump into the tipping kayak whilst holding onto the jetty rail.

Famous for Grace Darling rescuing people from the sticken SS Forfarshire, it turns out all she did was steady the boat her father rowed several times over and comforted a woman whose children had perished. Not quite the picture of her rowing in rough seas painted by the tourist agencies. But being in those waters I can understand how frightening it must be out there in a Northumberland Coble – never mind a sea kayak!

We had been paddling in relatively calm waters – apart from the tidal streams, and we set off now along with the other kayakers. Since my rudder was playing up again since I adjusted it at Longstone I was joining them as they were heading back to Bamburgh on the right – but Ollie the sheepdog came along and made me go through the difficult waters with tidal streams all over the place!

Now with a dodgy rudder in a kayak that needs a rudder in springs tide in a tidal stream – this was a joy to everyone else! Ollie kept me right and I made it through the different streams using my paddle rather than a rudder and stayed upright which was touch and go at times. Wide kayak with sponsons does make a difference and fear works wonders with bracing. Upside down in a tidal stream at the Farnes would not be fun. As I said the first half of my roll is perfect – the going upside down bit. One of the guys who went off tidal surfing in rougher waters found himself in this situation.

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It seemed a good idea at the time to sign up for the Foundation Rescue and Safety course at Allanton, whilst sitting in a warm sitting room in front a computer. The reality was a cold Saturday morning standing pushing Bob’s van stuck in mud at the side of the Whiteadder River in Berwickshire and lifting off wet kayaks and tramping through mud to the river’s edge with them. This was forecast to be the stormiest day of the year and the wind was starting to pick up – the south coast had already been battered with 100mph winds and it was heading north fast (well at 100 miles per hour anyway).

Fuelled with a snickers bar and banana with coffee after Gutbusters it was a case of dry suit on with layers underneath, wet boots on, PFD on, knife ready and a quick practice at throwing ropes as far as we could into the river. It was then ok one of you in river and two on bank to throw ropes. Mike you go first. Mike toddles up to the bend in the river and falls in floating down making myself big (size of an elephant) waving my arms, noticing people on the bank fussing with ropes and shouting ‘we are not ready yet’ as I go floating past at speed and heading for the inevitable delights of the ‘Gobbler’ weir downstream – a rope flew over me and I grabbed it over my river bank shoulder so it didn’t strangle me and I was pulled into the muddy bank and safety.

I was in the river and that is more or less how I remained for the rest of the day – in a kayak and then capsized under the kayak in the brown water waiting for rescue, or in the brown water rescuing others, and finding out that wearing neoprene gloves causes you to half save the person before the kayak slips away from you and just as they are grabbing a welcome breath they are plunged into the water again mid breath. Fortunately people can’t swear when they are spluttering when they surface after that.

Bob had a great job – he sat in a chair on the riverbank and shouted at us – ‘That isn’t a bloody raft, Never give up, you idiot’ – and that was to his wife – we got much worse abuse. We were getting colder and colder and we were wearing dry suits – I would have hated to be in anything less. It was also exhausting as it was a continuous process of falling in and dragging yourself onto a kayak or pulling someone’s kayak up or paddling to stop heading down to GobblerVille and its aerated water traps.

Lunch consisted of banana, tuna sandwich and some welcome warm hot chocolate from Kim’s pink flask – I sat in one canoe and everyone sat in the other one I did explain it was my wife’s flask but they looked uncertain. Lunch passed far too quickly and it was open canoe afternoon with the wind increasing and funnelling down the cliffs. A welcome shot of Bob’s Laphroiag gave Bob the chance to now explain why alcohol was a bad idea when cold. I like the illustrative method – or perhaps just liked the whisky.

The open canoe was less successful for me – especially getting back into them – I did manage it to find that there was more water in the canoe than in the river and I now looked like I was in a floating (just) bathtub. Being rescued by someone else had a similar effect except there were two of us now in their floating bathtub. Doing the ‘curl’ with another open canoe was interesting – standing up in my canoe and lifting the wet canoe up whilst the wet person that had been in it is now holding onto my gunwhale to balance me – empty the canoe and tip it back on the water – job done and I surprisingly did not end up in the water in this process – which by now surprised everyone else too.

Life saving with Annie was interesting in that the kiss of life is no longer taught – you just pump away in between her nipples to the beat of the Bee Gee’s “Stayin’ Alive” (or “Nellie the Elephant”, not by the Bee Gees) and send everyone else off for proper medical care (999 or 112 on mobile) and remember which side of the river you are on as it is not only embarrassing having an ambulance stuck on the other side of the river as your patient is expiring from lack of care.

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The plan was clear – circumnavigation of Holy Island (Lindisfarne) with Ollie Jay from active4seasons in Northumberland and a group of his experienced kayakers. What was an initial good thought to muscle into the group turned into reality as I drove over the tidal causeway and stood on the harbour of Holy Island on the Saturday morning looking at a calm water with my packed lunch in a dry bag.

An attractive swedish blonde and a London homeopath with my dream kayak, the feathercraft K1, arrived followed shortly by a couple of doctors, a vet on the phone dealing with an injured animal and Ollie with my kayak and wet suit. We assembled all the gear and got the kayaks ready and parked the vehicles in the overpriced car park and made ourselves familiar with the gospel of ByLaws – no tripods on cameras and no launching and landing of watersport equipment other than the harbour (I guessed that included sea kayaks). I did bring my action figure Jesus to travel with me to stop me capsizing with his walks on water action.

Ollie started off his team discussion of the ‘challenge’ – ok this was no longer a monthly sea kaykaing get together but was now a challenge to paddle hard against the tide and increasing wind to make a fast disappearing time window. Great first paddle for me. We all got into the sea and my Valley Aquanaut boat was tippier than the Cetis I had at Skyak but Ollie had filled a large tank with sea water behind me so it was more stable.

We paddled out at 10:45 past the castle and out into the blue yonder of the North Sea. I started to tire fairly quickly – possily through having to balance more possibly because I was coming down with something or possibly cos I hadn’t had enough brose at breakfast.
We hit the North Sea or more accurately the North Sea hit us as we headed north on the east side of the island towards the white pyramid. Time and tide and wind was against us and seals kept popping up in front or behind (could only tell by the plop behind my kayak as he submerged. The waaves were starting to get much more challenging. I was slowing down and the time window was closing so we decided that Ollie would enter into towing practice with me as the others headed off to the entrance for the complete circumnavigation. Towing was actually more difficult than paddling as you needed to keep in track using your paddles and also slow down to stop hitting the tower. As we headed into the beach the surf was impressive and looked scary. Ollie disconnected the tow rope and we went in together – wave by wave by wave until the last wave turned me around and with Ollie screaming ‘back paddle on the left’ I capsized in the surf (known as the worst possible place to capsize).

I was under, glasses off and wondering whether Ollie was going to come up to so I could do an eskimo rescue when I realised that was unlikely in the surf. I had also not just fallen out as usual (Ollie must use good spray decks with tight bungies) – so I pulled the tab and dropped out and came up in the surf. Grabbing the boat and paddle I could walk in to te beach helped by waves crashing down on me. Ollie assembled a pair of wheels and said see you at the other side I am going to get the others through and disappeared into the surf. So much for action figure Jesus maybe I should have stuck him on the front instead of inside the kayak.

I dragged the kayak on wheels over the sand and then wet sand and then sand dunes. In an ‘Ice Cold in Alex’ moment I was dragging this kayak up a dune and it was refusing to go any further and was slipping back and I knew if it slipped back then it would slip off of Ollie’s wheels. It fellover a few times and I dragged it up sideways once but made it to the car park where tourists were amused by the sight of me careering down the sand dune pursued by a kayak.

Lunch was by the bylaws sign where I learned that I could only launch from the harbour. So ignoring that bylaw as I wasn’t a Christian (hey Jesus broke rules too) and launched into the bay. I floated it out whilst walking until the water was dep enough and crouched down and entered the kayak which promptly grounded it on the sand with my additional weight. Realising that the tide was going out and things were not going to improve I fell out of the kayak to drag it over teh sands until it was deeper. This time floating I paddled out waiting for the others to come round the causeway except now I could see cars driving over it! So assuming they had turned back I paddled around the sticks marking the pilgrims way up to the edge of the road, beached the kayak at high water mark and with paddle marched up to my car in the car park.

The paddle I was given was one that does not break into parts and I had the TT – this meant that my drive to the harbour was with a paddle diagonally in the passenger rubbish and over my chest and out the window. I had to make sure that I didn’t hit anything otherwise I was going to end up with a broken shoulder and christians with a sore head.
Made it in one piece to find the other kayakers coming in without Ollie who had set off to find me – so I had to find Ollie. I dropped the paddle off and gave the wet homeopath (I was not the only one who capsized in surf) a lift to the car park. Driving down to where the kayak was left it was gone and no sight of Ollie anywhere. So rationally either christians had confiscated it, holidaying geordies had nicked it or Ollie was paddling back towing the empty kayak on his tow lapstrap. We eventually caught up (he had paddled back to the harbour towing my kayak).

We all packed up and headed off the island on the wet causeway the others had carried their kayaks over the mud flats earlier, and retired in swimming trunks to the wicker chair seats of the Lindisfarne Inn (a much remodelled put at Beale with an overgrown runway field across the A1).

Exhaused with most body parts hurting it was still a great day. The east coast doesn’t have the get out of jail free places that the west coast does but it still has some great beauty and wildlife and challenging waters for kayaking.

It has to be pointed out that whilst I spent 6 hours in a day of exercise and healthy pursuits Kim spent 7 hours (count them and shudder) clothes shopping in Marks and Spencers.

We have now taken delivery of our waterrower for stamina and paddling training so hopefully I’ll make it round Lindisfarne next year much faster!

I had read the book Sea Kayaking by Gordon Brown and, apart from wondering why the Prime Minister had the time to both ruin our economy and write a book on sea kayaking, was inspired enough by it to book onto the Skyak course. I had previously tried to drown myself in Kelso Swimming Pool and now felt ready for the open sea. Kim typically encouraged me as she assumed it was dangerous.

I breakfasted at the Eilean Iarmain, a cooked highland breakfast to keep the cold out and picked up my email by standing at the midgie covered bench overlooking the loch. When suddenly a girl appeared with kayak dropped it in the water and stepped in and paddled over to the island in the distance, got out with a strimmer and started to strim away! This was kayaking in real life.

Gordon welcomed us all as we assembled then we were passed onto Jazz for the day to get a feel of the kayaks and getting wet. We assembled all of our wetsuits, floation, and the masonic looking spraydeck into large blue IKEA bags which we were assured were International Kayak Expeditionary Association bags.

Off to the Sound of Sleat and the Armadale ferry terminal and launched to the left of it. I had chosenthe high performance pencil thin kayak – this was a bad idea for one not so pencil thin and it was described as ‘very tippy’ by Jazz and he plopped me into a Cetis which was designed for fat americans. I liked the Cetis. We spent the morning paddling around getting used to edging and then set off like ducklings following each other into the Sound of Sleat and following the coast to a seaweed bay for lunch. Since I hadn’t entirely read the ‘what to bring’ part of the email Jazz kindly shared his peanut butter and honey sandwiches with me (delicious) and others donated excess fruit.

Lunch powered us all up for a trip into the middle of the Sound of Sleat – it was totally still apart form some up and down motion and we hung off a buoy watching porpoises and Minke whales in the distance, a skua and a black headed gull dog-fighting above us for 10 minutes and then seals popped up close to us. The joy of kayaking is that you are one of the water creatures, silent and part of the waterlife. Well until the Mallaig to Armadale ferry comes chugging past anyway.

We paddled back to the terminal through a rocky channel where I managed to crash into George’s back as the tide pushed me through… then under the ferry terminal pier seeing the sea urchins and into capsize mode to make sure we were wet. Jazz demonstrated an impressive roll and we packed up for the day sitting all wet in the van back. Wet stuff washed down in non salty water and hung out to dry, a debrief and then off for a warm bath and off to the pub to drink the draft real ale dry! One of the other courses had Tim who emerged from his ayak and tore a ligament – he had to go to A&E in Broadford seen quickly and given pain killers and anti-inflammateries (which he confused and took double pain killers with beer instead).
The rest of the Irish contingency joined us for tales of derring doo in kayaks and enjoying a mobile video of Gordon doing his acrobatics in a kayak. The experienced others were set for a trip to Rum or a circumnavigation of Rassay.

The next day I knew we were going further so fuelled myself on what kept the Canoe Boys, couple of chaps who kayaked from the Clyde to Skye in the early 1900’s, tradional brose. Brose is a delightful dish – a plate of oats with a pinch of salt and with boiling water poured over on the boil, put plate over the dish and let the steam cook the mix and add in a knob of butter. Mix and devour – especially with the hotel cream and honey and a banana on the side. Perfect paddling fare.

Today was going to be with Gordon and a couple of Newcastle green architects joined us to make up the half dozen paddlers. We chose our kayaks (Gordon said ‘try any kayak, but Mike will break your arm and possibly worse if you try to steal his Cetis’) and launched at Kyleakin, near the Skye bridge. We paddled around for a few minutes until I managed to capsize the ‘incredibly stable’ Cetis. Gordon did the rescue, emptying the cockpit and bracing my kayak as I slid a leg in and then humphed myself out of the water facing to the aft of the kayak and slipped into the cockpit and turned around feeling refreshed after my dunking. I have a large bruise on my thigh from that experience!

We paddled under the Skye bridge which came with some tidal flow and choppy water – and no one, not even me, capsized. It was strange seeing Rassay chug past the bridge as our relative tidal movement caused a strange sensation of thinking the island is moving and not us. We spotted otter hides built by Brian Wilson, the Blazing Paddles author – why are all kayak folk named after politicians? err says Michael Forsyth.

We dragged the boats up to a seaweed cove for lunch (I had some this time) and rested ready for a paddle up Loch Alsh taking advantage of hte eddy currents near the edge of the loch. Past Kyle of Lochalsh piers being pressure washed and then crossing the loch watching for boats to the wreck of a WW2 mine filled ship and down past the Leopard Man’s lochside home (I had previously seen the much tattooed man in the BP garage the other night) and back around the islands to Kyleakin (a 13 kilometre paddle in all) to capsize as we came in to the beach. Mike’s day was described by a fellow paddler as symmetric – I would describe it as symmetrically wet. Still I didn’t feel cold even being in a well named ‘wet’ suit all day.

My complementary miniature of gaelic whisky was drunk in a hot bath and we met the others in the pub in front of a roaring fire. I was out earlier at the midgie bench picking up emails when I saw a couple arrive by boat. It turned out to be Ken Stott of Rebus fame with a lady who enjoyed poking the fire and adding logs onto it. I did suggest that this was a very fine service she offered coming in by boat to poke my fire. There was also a most gorgeous Gaelic College student who we were chatting to, she was studying Gaelic history (even though the language is now below the numbers required for it to survive we now have a Gaelic tv channel dedicated to it – Gaelic language television whose subtitles are also unhelpfully in Gaelic only). Lobster had magically appeared on the menu as the food critic from Scotland on Sunday had appeared so I enjoyed the other half of a fine dish.

So the evening ended with Ken Stott buying drinks and talking about Rum, with his fire poker, the chef and the michelin bagging hotel manager as the bottles of real ale disappeared.

This set me up for the paddle from Ord the next day. With bottles of Lucozade we set off in a force 2 wind with waves lapping and paddled to see fossils beside a waterfall and a highland clearance village. We lunched on a coral beach, paddling through the surf and against the tide to get there, and met a couple who were writing a book on kayaking routes from Ardnamurchan Point to Cape Wrath. The views were stunning and the sun was out – what a splendid time.

This, however, was really the calm before the storm as the next paddle took us back to Ord bay where we all practised rescues and capsizing and acrobatics. This is where Gordon did his acrobatic demo – out of the boat with his legs on either side he turns around 360 degress and then leans over to touch bow and stern and then stands up!

We were not so acrobatic although one chap managed to stand up before falling in – we were all in the water for a good hour before teeth started to chatter and warm coffee was forthcoming. The into the hot tub – the gotcha with the hot tub is that the salty water has to be hosed off you and the only hose is freezing cold mains water. Still the hot tub revived us all and we parted in different directions with signed copies of Gordon’s book – me heading North by Northwest.