Loading driftwood on the kayak

Our steed on the driftwood beach

Our steed on the driftwood beach

Yesterday we finally went on our kayaking trip to collect some driftwood that we had planned for a while.

The sky was cloudy, so were not exactly kissed by the sun warmth. Luckily the air was still enough that we didn’t really get splashed and paddling was easy.

It took a while to reach our destination. I remembered it closer from the time we walked through there. We saw someone walking their dog on the way but they never got to the beach where we were.

Eventually we did get there, and Fiona set off in search of the best items. She came back with some nice bundles, and of course some rocks as well, to make sure the kayak wouldn’t be too light.

Fiona happy to have found a pallet, unaware of future developments

Fiona happy to have found a pallet, unaware of future developments

We also spotted a very nice and new looking pallet, which I wanted to take back. We tied it to the back of the kayak and set off from the beach like that, but soon realized that the drag was enormous. Fiona didn’t fail to make that clear for the whole 5 minutes we tried to kayak with it and also some of the following hour. So I untied the pallet and we left it there. The best prize then was a big dry sponge.

We got back to the car quite dry, if not exactly warm.

So we now know that it’s ok to kayak even in the winter, but it’s better to have not only a still, but also a sunny day.

Back to Nopigia with our driftwood load

Back to Nopigia with our driftwood load

Kayak to Ravdoucha

Markus always loved to play cavemen

Markus always loved to play cavemen

With Markus we’re always keen to do some kayaking together.

During the time he was here the weather was often windy though, and my energy was quite low from little sleep and I guess a new beginning.

On this day we decided to take the kayak to Ravdoucha, starting from Nopigia.

The wind was blowing, and we had to paddle quite hard. We landed at a very small beach on the way. Then we had another break at a partially sheltered groove in the coastline below a cave. While I held the boat, Markus went up to have a look at the cave. We kayaked past the old pillars, which I later found out were part of some German iron extracting plant during the war. We had a look at Ravdoucha from just around the rocky outcrop, but had had enough of wind and cold splashes, so we turned back.

We put the sail up only to find out it was broken. The wired frame had snapped in 2 points, and the wind was very irregular and not exactly behind us anyway. We paddled back with a good lateral wind.

Pillars in the sea. Iron mining?

Pillars in the sea. Iron mining?