Ravenglass Seaquest 2013

Are we really in May?
With heavy rain and force 5 winds forecast the Ravenglass Seaquest certainly wasn't going to feel like an easy spring day out. That said, 3 hours in nice warm waterproofs was definitely more preferable to the entire day in wet lycra on the Fred Whitton, which was also on Sunday.

It was my first Ravenglass Seaquest and Andrea's first sea kayak event and given the forecast I was really surprised by the good turnout and everyone seemed in good spirits. There was a good variety of different craft including from river boats to Canadian canoes and even the odd surf ski.

 Gearing up and trying to get some tips at the start

Being Andrea's first event and having only done a few trips this year we decided to take a fairly leisurely paddle straight down the Esk with the tide behind us and see how we got on. From the start the field seemed evenly split, half going down the Esk and the rest down the Mite and Irt. We didn't really have a strategy, other than avoid zig zagging, slipping on mud or getting a soaking (all of which we failed on). By the time we'd wrestled Andreas ridiculously tight spray deck on, I looked up and we were last off, although this was slightly disheartening it did have the advantage that we didn't have to map read for the first four check points.

 Everyone under starters orders

The event started at 12pm and with high tide at 1.30pm with had a good tidal push for first hour. With 6kn tidal flow into the estuary and the wind against the tide, there were a few rough bits between the start and the viaduct. After the viaduct it felt much more like a big river and quickly narrowed into tight meanders towards Muncaster Castle. With the banks soaked from the heavy rain there was a fair bit of scrabbling up mud to get to the check points, but it was all good fun.

Doing a bit of wading!

It took us about an hour to get down the Esk, after about 40mins the faster paddlers were coming past in the opposite direction.  It was interesting to see wing blades seem to be the weapons of choice for the serious paddlers.

Once we had got all but one check point we turned and made our way back down the Esk towards the Viaduct and collected the check points on the opposite bank. By the time we got back into the main estuary the wind seemed to have picked up and the conditions were starting to get beyond Andreas comfort zone, so we decided to call it a day and head in, we weren't alone.

Despite the appalling weather we enjoyed ourselves and would definitely recommend to any keen paddler for next year.  There's a list of similar events on the Performance Kayak website, if you've not been on this website it's definitely worth a look even if you're not in to events or big crossings.

After doing both the Ravenglass and Fleetwood Seaquest events, I can highly recommend them, they're great fun and I wish there were more in a year. You don't need particularlty good map reading skills and in the Ravenglass event it seemed like you can turn up in any type of kayak or canoe.  I can't wait for the next one!