I met up with Mark today for a familiarisation session as Mark has just bought a P&H Scorpio and is still trying to get to grips with a few rescues and to get a feel of his new boat.
We started off paddling inside the flat calm bay and made our way out to Kettleness point where there was some large swells rolling in over the shallow ground with a few big breakers mixed in I had a short mess around fooling in the waves while Mark was tucked safely on the outside edge of them but didn't manage to really surf any of them properly today.
We then paddled around the point giving the rough water a wide berth and headed down towards Sandsend stopping to fool around in the small cave entrances and a bit of rockhopping too really enjoyed this still find it hard to feel in control and balanced when left high and dry on a rock but all good practice.
As Mark was reversing in to a cave entrance I spotted a large wave heading our way so shouted him to start forward paddling out into it just in time as he had just enough momentum to push out and pop through the roller (think he enjoyed that bit!)
Some really stunning scenery along this stretch of coast not seen by many!
I had been watching Mark keeping well out from the rocks but found some ‘Safe’ (famous last words) water on the edge of a steep cliff with a small crevice/cave in it where the swell was just moving up and down with no risk of big breaking waves and some small clepotis created so encouraged him to have a little play about in it after which I couldn't resist but whilst reversing my stern into the small crevice a surge of water drained out of the gulley as my stern was hard up against the rock and was stupidly tipped (Really need to react quicker with a brace) and ended up swimming in what turned out to be a very deep gulley couldn't feel the bottom and had to hold on to my boat and wait for my paddle to be washed back down from the back of the cave (yet another silly mistake letting go of the paddle) bad habits of relying on a paddle leash whilst on my sit on top.,but I managed to keep calm and still smiling I shouted Mark as he was oblivious to my situation and he came over offering assistance but I was determined to get myself out of my situation and managed a solo self rescue without any problems a great confidence builder.
After this we headed back to our launch point and we had an hour or so of practicing self rescues which Mark really struggled with last week but after just one demo he nailed it this week so we progressed on to assisted recoveries which he managed without issue too Mark also brought along a paddle float to practice with and he can use this with very little effort to re board should the need arise, I borrowed the float and had a fool about using it to roll myself back up not from totally inverted but almost and think it may help me get my head around the right position to be in for rolls in the future
A Video of the day:
