After weeks of practice and a two day fun-packed training and assessment course, I have finally achieved my 3 star sea kayak award! The two day course started with a wonderful day: it rained for the most of it and the wind was fierce. We travelled to Diabaig Bay and to practice our paddling skills. We all managed to go in a straight line, turn and reverse without too many difficulties. However than we graduated to moving sideways. This started well enough, with everyone turning and moving the boats but we then decided to add more edge. This was too much for some. Dan put his boat on edge and using the draw stroke, came in too far and neatly capsized. One down two to go. On the way back to the Landrover for lunch we realised the wind had picked up and we had great fun trying to get back in a head wind. After lunch we went back out to start practicing our support strokes, rescues and rolling. The first two went well with everyone able to support and rescue each other. Unfortunately the rolling was not so successful. Dan was the only one able to roll up, with Matt and I struggling.

The following day it looked as though the weather was going to be just as bad so we went towards Gairloch and found a smore ecluded bay. In the morning we carried on refining the skills we had learned the day before. In the afternoon we went back into wet drills, rolling and rescuing.

The third day was our assessment. For this we went to Shieldaig Bay and demonstrated our skills while paddling along the coast. On the way back, we demonstrated towing a kayaker and once we returned, we were asked to show our bracings, rescues and rolls. Once these were all done we were told that we had passed our course – and told should start to prepare for further courses.

Richard

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