Canoe on Windermere

Sue’s ankle was still a great range of colours: red, purple & blue. This prevented too much on our feet. Her swift recovery meant that we could walk from the B&B to the YHA and hire a Canadian canoe for a half day (4 hours).

We did a quick skirt round the top of the lake then headed down the western shore line, just to see how far we could get. The technique was probably awful, but we made reasonable progress. We felt there was a bit of a wind against us, but still headed across to the eastern shore after about 2 hours, then back north. We had time at the end to go up one of the rivers feeding the lake.

There were times when the direction was a bit ragged and I am sure that better technique would mean better style and less effort. It was good fun and we managed nearly 9 miles – not too bad for beginners!

Kayak Taster, Windermere

Sue was suffering with her sprained ankle, a spectacular colour of red and purple from the bruising and reaction to freezer gel. Hardly able to walk when we arrived at Ambleside we decided to go for a paddle. The proprietor at Ambleside YHA seemed to label us as novice divots and was reluctant to let us out in a canoe without stabilisers. He sent us on our way in a sit on “bomb proof” twin kayak for a 2 hour hire. This allowed us to explore the 2 rivers that feed into the top of Windermere and a few of the bays at the north of the lake.

The paddling was fun. Sue in the front took the lead in steering. My job was to keep in synch with the paddles and apply some of the grunt to keep us moving.

It was good fun, we both enjoyed it but the seating was a stress on the back muscles. It did the ankle good – cold and wet with no stress.

Water Based Navigation

Today was another Duke of Edinburgh training session, this time with 2 Gold groups as part of their 4 day practice. The venue was Langorse Lake, only a small area of water. The challenge for Sue & I was to create a challenging series of exercises that would teach them something useful as well as giving them a good day.

We started with a timed paddle to give them an idea of their pace, and also the effect of the wind. We even managed to arrange a good bit of wind to make the exercise work.

Following this was a land based exercise to discuss the optimum inland lake navigation techniques which we surmised as being “keep in touch with the map; tick of landmarks; navigate against land based features; compass only to check direction). We then did a compass bearing exercise on the land as a safety technique (bad weather etc.). This was followed by a water based exercise on bearings where they seemed to do a quite good job.

The last, and longest exercise, after lunch, was an orienteering type event with each group putting out controls, and then each group bringing in the course set by the other. It worked with no problems.

They seemed to enjoy it and they all said it was useful. A great success we think.