less riding these days – apart from the usual jolly to work – but more paddling.
to the extent that i’ve now bought a second boat…

this was taken in on derwent water during a trip to the lakes. a pretty cool trip with my dad and some of his old buddies and their sons. lots of good beer and lots (3 days in 4) of paddling. i took steve’s boat and lent mine to others. it rained pretty much non-stop. ironically, it was wetter for those who chose a walk on land than it was for me; lower half in a boat and top half in waterproof cag etc.

the following weekend saw steve and i visit desperate measures in nottingham. i demoed a dagger charleston, steve a 300 quid carbon paddle!. he needed a boat to come along with me along the trent but chose probably the least suitable boat in the shop, a 3 foot long liquidlogic somethingorother

the boat took a little getting used to. strangely less stable feeling than the waikiki or my paradise, but when you leaned it, it proved more stable than either. best thing about it was just how straight it went, especially with the skeg down. i was sold…

steve and i had been to brookebank in warwick during the week and i’d seen that they had a couple of charlestons in stock, including one in ‘special order’ kiwi (green). it was therefore inevitable that when i got back from nottingham i was on the road within a few minutes, warwick bound… they did a great deal. by buying a £4 loyalty card, i ended up with about £100 off the boat, deck, cockpit cover etc.

the real surprise was that gosia realised that i wasn’t going to be able to paddle my new boat for a couple of weeks and so volunteered come come out with me the following day.

after bouncing off the banks for a few hundred meters, she got the hang of it, stopped complaining and got on with it…

i hope i get to do half the trips i have planned in the boat…