I've managed to get in a couple of paddles in the Aegean Sea to add to my list of places I've canoed over the years. At Kypri, Andros I hired a little plastic sit on top number, quite decent compared to some of the rubbish I've seen for hire in other places ,it even came with a set of asymmetric paddles for the bargain price of 10 euro for an hour. It reminded me that It was a far cry from the kit I started out on.
My first canoeing experience was in a double wood and canvas job ( I say double but it would hold at least 20 sea scouts and and a teepee) It weighed the same as a land rover and even had a name 'Swift' which it wasn't ,and had the handling characteristics of an iceberg! The paddles were cut down telegraph poles with a lump of lead on each end the life jackets must have come from the titanic surplus stores filled with kapok. Even as 12 year old kids the question often arose of why something that was supposed to keep you afloat weighed so much. And what sort of animal was a kapok anyway. The kit itself however was a mere trifle however ,the real challenge was to get all this stuff the 400 yards from the scout hut,up Bold Street ,across the Runcorn road ,through the alleyway and into the Bridgewater canal .the first section was fairly easy, a day and a half would do it easily,admittedly some of the lads would have to go to A and E to get their hernias and bad backs sorted out, but then came crossing the Runcorn road,timing was everything and I can't remember the number of times we had to go and apologise to the local bus company because ' Swift' had been in the middle of the road and once again written off one of their double deckers. Next came the launching, dropping the boat into the murky waters was always satisfying ,it was only later we realised that the resulting tsunami nearly sank the Runcorn to Widnes ferry , and I think we can be proud of the fact that it led to the building of the bridge- at least I think that's why they built it.
I have also for the the first time tried my hand at paddle boarding . It is without doubt the most pointless canoeing related activity and ranks alongside the Brevill sandwich maker, the Sinclair c5 and the Corby trouser press for stupid ideas. In fact the aforementioned trouser press is not as far from paddle boarding as you might imagine. Paddle boarding was invented by a bloke called Derek who lived in a hut on the north Norfolk coast. He was by all accounts putting the finishing touches to a pair of socks he was ironing when the ironing board fell apart, so angry was he, he threw the board into the sea and to his amazement it floated ! Quick thinking Derek then taped an oven glove to the end of an old mop and paddled off to Norway. Derek's invention has since spawned thousands of watery ironing boards now made from fibreglass or tuppaware. I don't think there that there is any historical evidence for this type of craft . The canoe came from the north american indians, the kayak from the eskimos. I can't imagine an Inuit tribe on the shores of an arctic island wondering how to get half a ton of whale blubber back across a raging arctic sea having a conversation along the lines of, I know lets put it on a flat board , then we stand up on it and use our harpoons as paddles. I don't think so. The other observation is that most of the people having a go (other than smart arsed kids) wobble about ,and with the first breath of wind have to sit down thereby turning it into a , well..... a canoe. Paddle boarding then has caused untold misery and sent most self respecting canoeists crying into their spraydecks. Derek is a millionaire but will spend the rest of his life in a padded cell just outside Kings Lynn with just a broken ironing board and a mop for company.
My canoeing will be of the sitting down variety from now on.
Home tomorrow, bugger, although on the plus side I can finish reading the latest copy of Paddle Board Weekly on the plane back.
My first canoeing experience was in a double wood and canvas job ( I say double but it would hold at least 20 sea scouts and and a teepee) It weighed the same as a land rover and even had a name 'Swift' which it wasn't ,and had the handling characteristics of an iceberg! The paddles were cut down telegraph poles with a lump of lead on each end the life jackets must have come from the titanic surplus stores filled with kapok. Even as 12 year old kids the question often arose of why something that was supposed to keep you afloat weighed so much. And what sort of animal was a kapok anyway. The kit itself however was a mere trifle however ,the real challenge was to get all this stuff the 400 yards from the scout hut,up Bold Street ,across the Runcorn road ,through the alleyway and into the Bridgewater canal .the first section was fairly easy, a day and a half would do it easily,admittedly some of the lads would have to go to A and E to get their hernias and bad backs sorted out, but then came crossing the Runcorn road,timing was everything and I can't remember the number of times we had to go and apologise to the local bus company because ' Swift' had been in the middle of the road and once again written off one of their double deckers. Next came the launching, dropping the boat into the murky waters was always satisfying ,it was only later we realised that the resulting tsunami nearly sank the Runcorn to Widnes ferry , and I think we can be proud of the fact that it led to the building of the bridge- at least I think that's why they built it.
I have also for the the first time tried my hand at paddle boarding . It is without doubt the most pointless canoeing related activity and ranks alongside the Brevill sandwich maker, the Sinclair c5 and the Corby trouser press for stupid ideas. In fact the aforementioned trouser press is not as far from paddle boarding as you might imagine. Paddle boarding was invented by a bloke called Derek who lived in a hut on the north Norfolk coast. He was by all accounts putting the finishing touches to a pair of socks he was ironing when the ironing board fell apart, so angry was he, he threw the board into the sea and to his amazement it floated ! Quick thinking Derek then taped an oven glove to the end of an old mop and paddled off to Norway. Derek's invention has since spawned thousands of watery ironing boards now made from fibreglass or tuppaware. I don't think there that there is any historical evidence for this type of craft . The canoe came from the north american indians, the kayak from the eskimos. I can't imagine an Inuit tribe on the shores of an arctic island wondering how to get half a ton of whale blubber back across a raging arctic sea having a conversation along the lines of, I know lets put it on a flat board , then we stand up on it and use our harpoons as paddles. I don't think so. The other observation is that most of the people having a go (other than smart arsed kids) wobble about ,and with the first breath of wind have to sit down thereby turning it into a , well..... a canoe. Paddle boarding then has caused untold misery and sent most self respecting canoeists crying into their spraydecks. Derek is a millionaire but will spend the rest of his life in a padded cell just outside Kings Lynn with just a broken ironing board and a mop for company.
My canoeing will be of the sitting down variety from now on.
Home tomorrow, bugger, although on the plus side I can finish reading the latest copy of Paddle Board Weekly on the plane back.
Location:Aegean Sea
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