Drove on to my next destination of Fahan located on the Inishowen Peninsula on the north Irish coast where I hd reserved a room at a B&B rated "10" out of "10" in customer satisfaction. It was perched on the side of a cliff overlooking Lough Swilly and a small fishing boat harbor -- absolutely stunning views!
Next day was the big day -- had been trying to book a slot on a sea kayaking tour for over a week and finally found one with an opening. Arrived, doned a wetsuit (years since I went scuba diving but was quickly reminded of how much of a PIA they are to put on!), clipped-on a flotation device and I and the guide grabbed two kayaks and headed for the water. There was a guide and three of us on the tour.
We got into the kayaks and huddled-up on the water as the guide explained that we would be paddling on an outgoing tide down the lough until we ran into the open sea (aka, the Atlantic Ocean). Compared to most of the time I'd spent in Ireland, it was a beutiful day, some sun, not too bad a breeze but still some grey in the skies. It was myself (who had never been sea kayaking before -- only other time I'd even been in a kayak was back in France on a River) and two teenagers who apparently had come out four or five days a week for the last few months with the intent of becoming guides themselves in a couple of years -- I was a little outclassed.
I quickly found sea kayaking to be quite a bit different from river kayaking -- on the river you're typically only going in one direction (pretty much straight ahead down the river) -- versus with sea kayaking you're having to contend with wave motion pushing you towards shore, tidal movement pushing you downstream and wind gusts frequently pushing you at a diagonal across the wave and tidal motions -- it's trickier in it's basic form. Rocks in a river add to the complexity as you're trying not to bash your head in against one whereas in the ocean you're trying to avoid them because they'll flip youi in an instant and traveling along the coastline in a lough, rocks are a major hazard.
I had a blast! The early section wasn't too bad -- just a little choppy from the wind -- and we moved right along (I had canoed quite a bit when I was younger so I had the paddle strokes down well enough to keep up with the others.) We went maybe six
miles over a four hour period at a fairly leisurely pace. About a third of the way though, things changed -- the skies clouded over -- the wind picked-up pretty good and soon we were havingto deal with two foot high waves and the occasional thiree footer (made me real happy that I hadn't eaten a large breakfast that morning). As we went further, it became somewhat more challenging -- not al all what you see in the travel posters of kayakers smoothly gliding over a flat, calm lake enjoying the views -- it was getting roiugher going up the waves with the a third of the prow out of the water, then usually gliding down the back of the wave and up over the next wave -- but occasionally the wave would break under the kayak and instead of gliding, it'd be more of a crashing motion and then maybe plowing into the next wave or finding yourself going sideways in the trough trying to get up and over the next wave -- the guide's advice -- "keep going, just don't stop paddling" We'd pass through that section and then it was back to just choppy water for a while until the next set of rough water. It was challenging but also a great deal of fun!
One of my biggest problems was spending too much time sightseeing and not paying enough attention to paddling -- it eventually caught-up with me. We were about a mile from the end of our trip in a fairly calm section when I got out a bit too far in front of the others and stopped paddling, waiting for them to catch-up. I had rested my paddle perpendicularly acrosst the boat and started daydreaming when a three foot wave came out of nowhere, caught the paddle scoop and over i went feeling really stupid. We were only fifty to sixty yards offshore so we weren't out all that far at that point. The guide caught-up and helped me get back into the kayak but it was too full of water and the waves flipped me a second time so I and the kayak both got towed back to shore. Emptied the water out and continued on our way with me paying much closer attention to what I was doing -- I learned my lesson quite well!
All in all, a fun time! Plan on doing more of it while I'm here.
That afternoon went for a drive along the north shore of the peninsula -- drop-dead views of the ocean beaches and cliffs -- the coasts in the US are nice too but here, once you get away from the large cities, it seems like it's all just amazingly beautiful, not just certain parts -- almost like living in a dream!
