On Sunday, after not going out sea paddling for a little while me and my boyfriend Andy headed down to Hope Cove to go for a little paddle. Being England it was grey, misty and of course raining, but that wasn't going to stop us, we were there so we were going to paddle. It was fairly rough when we got there with on shore winds and a far bit of swell, but luckily there is a little walled harbour area that made it easy to get out and back in without to much of a challenge.
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| Andy enjoying himself |
We took out the two Tide Race demos that we have at AS Watersports, i paddled an Xplore M, which was a little big for me but i just wanted to see how it performed and Andy was in the Xcite M though he was maybe a little heavy for it (all muscle of course!) but i really wanted to see how they behaved on the sea, having only paddled on the canal before.
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| View from my kayak, you can just see Burgh Island in the distance |
The aim was to paddle as far as we wanted towards Burgh Island, then turn round and head back towards Hope Cove, as we just had the one car.
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| Andy heading back |
Andy found the Xcite M a bit of a challenge as he was a bit heavy for it really, so it was a little on the "sporty" side and a bit tippy, strangely he wasn't to keen on taking many pictures! His other concern about the boat was that he didn't get on with the backrest, as it is quite hard and we both found that the back pad moved along the plastic strip while paddling meaning that one side of your back wasn't getting any padding. If either of us were to buy one of these i think we would need to have a play round with the backrest, as we're used to much more comfier outfitting that you generally get in white water kayaks.
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| Jemma looking very bright! |
The Xplore M that i was paddling handled the rough water very well, it felt stable and was also pretty quick though the water, i didn't really notice that it was to big for me as it was still easy to controllable, but i think the smaller size would just feel a bit snugger and I'd have even better contact with the boat. They both certainly looked good on the water (that's after Andy got over paddling a green boat) they are extremely stiff, the hatches were very dry after our paddle and were very easy to get off and on, if we could tweak the backrests I'd really like to give them another go.
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| Jemma posing for a quick picture |
Here are a few more pictures, unfortunately they don't give the location justice due to the grey day, there is some lovely scenery here, we will defiantly be coming back on a calmer, sunnier day to paddle all the way to Burgh Island and hopefully get some lovely pictures.
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| Coming round to the little harbour |
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| Jemma and Andy |
