West Cornwall Sea Kayak Meet

This past weekend was the West Cornwall Sea Kayak meet.. an informal gathering of sea kayakers from all over the country. It was excellent. Something like 80 paddlers from  far flung corners of the UK showed up which was especially brilliant as we are out on a bit of a limb down here in darkest Cornwall so it does take a bit of effort to make the journey.. the reward however is some really world-class sea kayaking plus of course the opportunity to catch up with old friends and make new ones. Anyway, I’m really busy this evening and lacking inspiration for words so rather than butcher the topic completely a run down of the salient points would probably look something like “all profits to local charities, fog, rain, sun, terrific food, bit nippy at times for June, good fun, glad I took my wellies”. A really excellent weekend from organisers Rich Uren, Ben and Christian. From a paddling point of view, knowing the coastline around here very well I was interested in ‘playing’ rather than making journeys… so with that in mind I left my decent camera at home and instead took a cheap waterproof compact that I can drop very quickly when I need to. The picture quality is truly bloody awful so I’m going to point you to some superior bloggage over on Mark’s excellent site here. However if you are inclined to stick around just a moment longer.. here are some snaps:

There are lots of cracks in the granite down west. Luckily over the weekend there wasn’t a huge amount of swell so it was possible to get in lots of places that have been off-limits for most of the winter.
Despite the lack of solid swell however we did manage to find some very fun things to play with, this reef was going off beautifully – producing a terrific, curved hollow, pit perfect for spitting out sea kayaks… and vindicated my camera choice, very much a case of dropping it quickly, grabbing my paddle and bracing for impact :-)
There is great rockhopping pretty much everywhere around here, and not much swell is needed to be able to find really fun spots.
.. a regular rabbit warren of gullies to explore.
Never boring….
.. and neither are the stupendous granite cliffs of Lands End itself. Very lucky to have on my doorstep.
The weather has been relatively quiet for a while so the ocean is ever so clear and doing that fabulous turquoise thing.
I needed to stop for ‘comfort reasons’.
I also borrowed a Tiderace Xcite S for a day, it’s on the left of this pic next to a pair of it’s full-sized siblings. I loved it… unfortunately ;-)
As an aside.. in 1912 the steamship City of Cardiff was wrecked in the bay at Nanjizal..
103 years later there isn’t an awful lot left… here’s a bit of her sticking up at low water… probably wouldn’t want to stick your boat on top of that.

There, that’ll do. Cheero!

14 thoughts on “West Cornwall Sea Kayak Meet

    • Suspect you were on autopilot when you typed London… ;-) But yep, just bits and pieces visible at low water. I never really paid attention though until Sunday, when just a large nut was sticking up. Somehow more intriguing than a big pile of metal.

      • also a case of rarely bothering to hug that particular bit of coast tightly… usually either looking for a wave over the sandbar or heading for the crack on the other side of the bay… where we met you :-)

  • Perhaps it was you lot who passed me near Logan Rock? I was out for a lonesome swim y’day from Pednvounder across the bay and noticed a load of very nice sea-kayaks rolling past, heading west….I was in a tri-suit, green swim-hat & goggles on my way to Prye/Logan Rock, but I wouldn’t expect you to remember! Looks like a nice time was had! :-)

  • I love rock hopping..Lake Michigan where I live is mostly sand and I’ve only been out a couple of times so far this year. (Sailing takes up a lotta time. :) ) You’ve got some great shots of tasty looking water and rocks.

  • Wow! The photos are beautiful. I’m mind blown. Thanks for visiting my corner of the Internet. Glad to know people still read blogs. Have to catch up with blog walking and posting and stuff.

    • yeah it’s a great bit of coast. I owned an Xcite from 2008 to 2014, the s didn’t exist when I bought it. It was a great boat but I’m a lean 75kg in my kayaking gear so at the lower end of the weight range for the boat. the S is a better fit

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