As part of my Level 2 coaching, I have to be able to coach in an open boat as well as my trusty sea kayak. Getting the necessary experience to do this is not always easy. Fortunately for me, I have happened upon several people who are in a similar situation so today my friends from Strathpeffer and I went into Inverness for a muck about in canoes around the canal basin.
As you may have gathered, recently it has been rather cold around here and we were stuck with a bit of a problem when we arrived at Muirtown….
A plan B was duly formed and we made our way to the ‘Banana’ Bridge over the River Ness. Here there are lots of little islands, some very small rapids and some sheltered water.
We started the day with a bit of ferrygliding back and forth across the river to get our sea boater selves back into the swing of these funny one bladed craft. We then headed down river a little way, breaking out into a sheltered area where we could practice our skills.
There were lots of different streams around the island here and we found an area under a small bridge maybe 8m across where we could safely practise our ferrygliding again. This time we thought we’d try a spot in reverse which was fun but a little frustrating! After a while, the light began to fade so we made our way about 500m down stream. Where another stream met the main channel, we played around with ferrygliding the rougher water. I really enjoyed that!
Landing after a couple of hours (in the dark!), we all thought we’d had a productive afternoon and of course, had managed to get a few more open boat hours under our belts to add to those logbooks. I may be converted yet…….
Oh and before I forget – of course my Santa hat made another appearance!
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