East Coast Wind Swell and Otters

Paul Thompson

8 min read

PROGRESS : We had planned the second leg to run down the east coast, rounding Carnsore Point to Fethard on the south coast where we would have a rest day and replenish stocks. In an ideal world that would have been the case together with favourable winds and tide flows. Alas, sea kayakers the world over know there is only one entity that makes the plans and

that's Mother Nature and you fight her at your cost. As I write this we have been in Ireland 14 days and out of those 14 we have had only 2 days without a Force 5 or F6 wind and sat here now the wind is blowing through at Force 7 and we are 47km behind our planned progress at Rosslare.

What we have noticed about the Irish Sea is the sheer speed at which conditions can change, the first few days we likened it to our home patch on the North Sea but now 14 days in we can say the two are very different. We generally see much stronger flows on the Irish Sea and this plus its shallow nature means it can change from calm to very testing larger seas with wave heights approaching 2 meters in just a few hours. The other more noticeable difference is the very short wave frequency we have experienced often 3 seconds or less once the wind picks it up. For sea kayaker this can be uncomfortable on the seas with little respite between waves and a challenge when landing and launching in sizeable surf. With short frequency which has often been as low as 3 seconds there is little time to get in the boat and put the spray deck on, push yourself off before the next wave crashes in often pushing your boat sideways to the beach if you let it. This isn’t a complaint but simply an observation of what we are experiencing, the days have followed a similar routine to the first week when most early mornings started with low wind which picked up through the day and fell away in the evening.

We have tried to time our paddling with the tide streams to get maximum assistance and when we couldn’t do this we have remained close to shore to pick up back-eddies in the bays which have often helped us pick up speed counter to the general flow direction. The upshot of all this though is that progress has been slower than hoped (247km) as we have only been able to put to sea on 9 of the 14 days. We found last year with the Scotland paddle that you have to remain philosophical at times like this and must not allow the unseasonably strong winds to pick away at your motivation. The good news though is we see a weather window developing in the forecast for the next 6 days ahead and we are hopeful to get our progress back on track.

THE PADDLE : It was nice to paddle to Howth which brought back a few memories of the last time there I'd sailed into the harbour on a round Britain yacht challenge, oh how different that was from the wonderful journey we are now undertaking. Crossing the shipping

lane in Dublin bay we were glad to have observed the buoyage on the ferry as we arrived from Holyhead. We crossed with the kayaks just east of the North Bull and Poolbeg light channel markers after we had waited for 2 car ferries and a cargo vessel to pass. What was useful was our ability to track them on Marine Traffic App and the Dublin Swift ferry coming into the bay at 28.6 knots, needless to say what looked far enough away at first for us to cross the channel wasn’t at this speed so we opted for caution and were glad we did.

Prior to leaving for the trip Sarah had photocopied and laminated over 100 A3 topographic maps and on the flip side put the marine chart for every section of the coast and boy were we glad this had been done.

Having both map and chart allowed tidal flows to be written on and gave us all the information we needed on the deck of the boat as we progressed south. We arrived in Sandy Cove full of sea swimmers, this was a lovely area with some very large houses as you paddle around the headland and Dalkey Island and its 2.5 knot tide race.

Bray and Greystones passed as we started to see a notable change in the landscape which would now be dominated by very long sections of sandy beach punctuated by rocky headland each with their own particular tide race to calculate and respect given the strong winds and swell. Even the long sections of beach (in excess of 20km in places) had notable flows up to 3 knots and the headlands such as Wicklow an attention grabbing 6 knots!.

The beaches we were finding dumpy meaning steep sided with waves crashing into rather than rolling gently over. This dumpy surf made for interesting landing in the new explorer kayaks and their pronounced V shaped hull that renders then quite tippy once you strike the

beach, getting used to this was amusing bordering on embarrassing at times. The other issue with the V hull (deep chine) is when fully loaded as these boat were with camping and food the V digs into the soft sand and is not easily pulled up the beach, it took 2 of us with straps and still at times we struggled with the weight. The Romany Classics we used in Scotland have a much flatter hull which is less good on the sea for speed and tracking but on the beach they were easily pulled up and out of the surf. This was something we hadn’t considered and would continue to present a challenge for the remainder of the week and who knows into the future!.

We saw our first Little Terns that would be with us for the remainder of the week right down to Rosslare, I have never seen so many of these beautiful little birds and its a delight to hear their call and see them diving and flying around the boats.

A notable camp was Magheramore which we approached in very sizeable surf as the sea had continued to rise during the day with the F5 which when on the sea you get used to. Landing is a different matter with these fully loaded carbon kevlar boats, there is little room for error and hitting rocks on the beach. We found a great spot in the dunes which gave some respite from the relentless wind which as the evening came dropped to a gentle breeze and by the

following morning was calm and beautiful start to the day. As I looked out of the tent that morning Sarah was 50m in front of me on the beach brushing her teeth next to a stream and I could could see she was transfixed on something. She came back with a big smile that I'm now used to seeing and usually means dolphins or otter , this time she had had an otter appear out of the dunes and run down to the sea in front of her as it headed off for breakfast. These are the priceless moments a trip like this bring into your life and leaves you smiling from the shear joy of the experience and even better she managed to record it on her phone.

* Otter heads off from breakfast

The weather and landscape followed a similar theme as we rounded Mizen Head passed Arklow and by the time we reached Courtown and pulled up on to the shingle beach south of the harbour we’d had enough of the wind and swell. This was not an ideal camp spot

being close to a beach car park which we’ve found can be noisy at night but we had no other option. We found a level bit of shingle and stone as far as possible from the car park and then setup camp. There was an advantage of our new home and that was 'take away' meals just a mile away in the village so no cooking or washing and we joined the tourists in this busy, happy little village with beautiful harbour. We both slept well that night and were fed, watered, packed and slipped away by 8 the next morning.

Our challenge in being unsupported is without doubt logistics which can at times be difficult, with work and family needs we decided never to be more than 5-10 days away from a vehicle so we leapfrog these around the coast. It is a frustrating process and we dream of having a ground support doing this for us. On one such stop we met some wonderful folk at Curracloe were Liam the owner of ‘The Winning Post’ cafe bar and shop complex could not have been kinder as we explained our trying to find a safe place for the car for a week he

opened up the entrance to his home and said will that do, brilliant and yet another example of the warm welcome and kindness we are being shown on this trip.

Ive mentioned in previous post the problem I was experiencing with my broken paddle replacement and when the message came in that the new paddles had arrived in Dublin just an

hours drive away we waste little time to head up and collect them. This paddle story has some distance left to run and I'll save it for a later write up but needless

to say the way Lendal in the US and Dave Pringle of Paddlesports Ireland have reacted warms the heart. I've had one memorable day with the new paddles so far which have come as a great relief due to their reduced weight and performance.

We had planned our crossing of Wexford / Rosslare bay meticulously as it has quite a reputation with numerous sandbanks and

big seas quickly developing. Another interesting feature here is that the south tide stream runs for 10 hours and the north stream just 2 unlike the more usual 6 and 6 meaning planning has to be spot on if travelling north but far more relaxed on the southward journey. At the north of the bay Raven Point was a memorable place for lunch as we had nowhere to hide

and were duly dumped by the heaviest rain storm I can ever remember at sea. At times the raindrop were the length of fingers and they bounced off the sea surface back onto the boat. We came alongside each other and just enjoyed the experience as there were no squalls or thunder though in the end because of the lightning risk we paddled to the shore. We decided paddling on water holding carbon paddles into the air is not the best practise when thunder clouds are around !

Our progress has ended at Rosslare which is a major container sea ferry terminal, we had some trouble hailing the Harbour Master on the radio and phone but in the end we received the necessary permission to cross the entrance and landed. Since then 2 days have passed with strong winds of Force 6 and 7 and we have been unable to continue. _________________________________________________________________________________