January | 2013 | Kayaking for care. A team fundraising event for East Cheshire Hospice.

Welcome to the new year! All the team had a good break from work and now the inevitable time has come where we recognize the need to get on the water and start paddling! John returned from Scotland with another kayak replacing his windsurfing gear so we had another boat to train on!

So onto the water we went after a bit of a slow start on Sunday morning. Well done everyone for making it considering the time of year. Fortunately it was incredibly mild and the water was not that cold at all. The purpose of this kayak session was simply to get people into the boats, find a place where we could park and easily launch, discover what extra gear we all might need, who was too cold or getting too wet etc.. Basically a play day to get a feel for the boats etc..

After an hour Stuart was already trying to convince the two John’s (with zero experience) to do rolls and shoot the enemy but after a tranquilizer he calmed down again. For half the team we had never been in a kayak before mate! Keep to the drill, the enemy is still 6 months away!

Having said all that, a special thanks to Steve and Stuart for some great initial training and patience. Next time it will be wet suites and in the water after we have done a few miles. We discovered we all need to practice our technique a lot more and that will come with time. We simply need a lot more water time but I think we did well to be on the water in early January!