h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today's trip was as slow as the last one was quick. Whereas the last trip to Pyrford had resulted in a PB today's ranks as a personal worst. The weather forecast was for cloudy conditions, maybe a sunny period or two, and light winds. The first bit was about right but the wind was in your face and gusting up to blustery.

I set off with the Bungee strap in place to load up the session and by half way there I was beginning to feel it. But it made me work and I had to keep the effort up to keep the forward movement going against the flow. It felt like it was slow going and the boat wouldn't glide at the end of a stroke, slowing down, almost like the brakes going on as soon as the effort came off.

It had seemed as if I was pushing against the wind as well, but on the return trip it was full on frontal, and took out any advantage I was getting from the flow. By half way back I was still going, but painfully. At the end I knew that I'd done all of five miles. It really is incredible how much difference that one strap makes to the dynamics of the boat.

I had forgotten to bring the Garmin so I hadn't timed the run. I hadn't realised just how slow I had been. As near as I can judge though it was something of the order of 1 : 40 which is some 30 minutes slower than last week's PB.

I felt that I needed to up the mileage this last week so after Tuesday's effort with the Bungee laden five miles, on Thursday I extended to a longer run of ten miles out to Papercourt lock, but without the Bungee. That went quite well at first but pushing against the flow on the river section I ended up tired on the last half of the return leg. The result was 2 : 55 including five portages. Not particularly fast, but not that bad either.

With only a days rest I thought that I might have trouble on Saturday's outing with the club when eight of us set off from Walton bridge on the Thames to paddle up to Penton Hook lock and return. The yellow warning of fast flow on the stretch up to Penton Hook had just been removed the night before, but even so the flow was quite substantial, in fact enough to give me another mile and a half per hour on the return journey's speed.

The weather was sunny at first, then overcast but warm enough to dispense with the cags but the wind was kicking up a bit more the the 10mph forecasted and blustery at times depending on which direction the river meandered. That, with some of the cross currents from weir cuts and other channels, together with pleasure craft wash, made for some interesting moments. At the turnaround at Penton I was trying to get back into the boat from a two foot high jetty, when the coaming of my kayak caught under the lip of the jetty, tilted right over and shipped enough water to make it necessary to drain the boat. Luckily I was only half way in and was able to pull myself out before I fell in the water.

The trip back was rather more pleasant than the journey up and a lot quicker. The overall speed wasn't much but at times I'd hit almost seven miles an hour. All in all though it was a useful trip.

Last week I went down to the club to join an organised paddle on the Thames which was just restarting on Wednesday evenings this year. I arrived to find that everyone who said they were going had already buddied up, and gone. That left me with the problem whether to go out alone or not. Although I'm normally by myself on every other trip on the Wey, going out on the Thames by myself is something I always thought I'd never do. But it was fairly placid and next to no wind, so I decided to do a short trip.

I took the route up towards Sunbury lock and kept to the side channels, only crossing over the river when I turned back after a mile and a half. The Sun was very low on the horizon and with the reflection off the water was blinding, to the extent that I couldn't see a thing in that direction. The return was ok except when I had to take the wash of a speeding cruiser that had me bobbing up and down like a cork. Getting back to the landing jetty was another trauma as it had to be approached with the Sun in my eyes again but I came in at an angle to minimise the glare.

I carried out another five miler on Tuesday with the Bungee attached, and this time took the watch to record a time of 1 : 20, which is slow but not as bad as I feared. It's very hard work to push against that resistance and be followed everywhere you go by a gurgling noise, but it does make you work.

This Easter weekend is the DW and I watched the times building up over the first couple of days on the on-line scoreboard. The club has three entries in the overnight doubles event, and all three made it home on Sunday. Today sees the finish of the four day event which I should have been in.

Anyway... On Saturday I went out on a club trip, once more on the Wey, but added another slow nine miles. That took my mileage for this month past the magic 42, so anything done by the end of the month is a bonus and a bit of elbow room.

I haven't had too much time for paddling this week so today's outing was the first, and probably the only one for this week. I would have tried the club's evening session tonight but after only one day's rain on Sunday the yellow warning boards are up again along our reach of the Thames.

So, back to the Wey again this morning instead. I set off to make it worth-while and paddled the first two and a half miles with the Bungee on. I removed it for the next two miles after portaging at Pyrford lock to continue upstream to Walsham Gates and the return. I put the Bungee back on for the rest of the way back. That's five miles with the Bungee and two clean. I was pleased to find at the end that I'd done the seven miles in just under two hours. That's not bad as it's only marginally slower than than I've previously done it clean the whole way.

It was also despite almost capsizing several times. Suddenly I became aware of a propensity for the paddle to dig in badly on the left side, throwing me off balance. I've put the cause down to having started to wear gloves due to a large callous that's developing on the inside of my right thumb, and that my right, little finger is swelling up at the end joint causing the end of the finger to swell up and distort out of line. The gloves were intended to prevent this but seem to be getting in the way of the usual rotation of the paddle which means it doesn't enter the water at quite the right angle. Anyway the problem stopped when I discarded the gloves. All very well but the hand is becoming a real problem and getting worse as the mileage increases.