Usk - Tal-y-bont Llangynidr, Wed. 29 Dec 2004

An end of year paddle for Hywel, Grant, Andy R., Matt, Rob, John N. and John M. Young John's baptism on Grade 3 water: see picture sequence.

Sea trip - Sully to Lavernock (and back), Sat. 11 Dec.

Three hardy paddlers - John N., Rob G. and I (Hywel) braved the elements - fine weather and a flat sea - for a walk in the park, or rather a paddle on the Severn Sea. The highlight was probably seeing what we thought was a mirage  - of men walking on the water as we paddled east to Lavernock. As we drew closer we realised they really were men - well, anglers actually - wadeing out onto Lavernock spit as it dried at low tide. We found we'd gone the landward side of the spit ourselves and we had to get out of the boats to cross. John and Rob were sceptical of my planning but when they saw the stream still ebbing at Lavernock Point they were almost convinced I'd got it right - until immediately afterwards when we turned and found paddling west hard work. They thought the tide was now on the flood. I kept saying it must be a local eddy but they weren't convinced until we saw the spit had widened from next to nothing to about 20 yards across. We landed west of Sully island for a long carry up the beach.

(I checked the actual tide times the following day. Low tide was around 12. We'd started at 10 and got back at 12).

Matt's report of Avon Descent, 7 Nov.

Both Grant and I had decided to put ourselves through the Ex descent earlier in the year when it all seemed a long way off and we felt brave.  But as the date came closer the prospect of an 19 mile paddle with little reward started to seem a less exciting prospect, when we discovered the Avon descent, only 10 miles.

I feel that we were not taking it all as serriously as we should when at 8.00am on the Sunday morning Grant called me to say that he was probably still over the legal alcohol limit to drive, feeling worse for wear myself, Esther said that she would drive us there, bless her.

Once at the start, surrounded by enthusiastic marathon
paddlers we felt slightly daunted by the photos of the weirs and warnings not to shot this one here and that one there, still as we came from the briefing I just thought I would follow Grant, but he to had not fully taken the details so we decided to just follow who ever was in front.

That is about as exciting as it got.  Met a few interesting characters, paddled 10 miles, looking at the back of Grant for most of the way, wishing that I still had a fiberglass slalom kayak instead of my redline.  The weirs were really of no consequence, because we were "racing" we could not even
stop to play.  Lots of fishermen, one about every 30m, for pretty much the whole distance, I never realised fishing was so popular.

I think that the moral of the story is, don't travel all the way to Stratford to do the Avon descent unless you really
have to.  If you cannot distinguish between the river and the canal you know that there is a long paddle ahead of you.