Lots of women and a handful of blokes!

Way back in August, I headed over to Bute for the Women's Sea Kayak Paddling Festival. Lots of women, lots of kayaks, lots of paddling and a handful of blokes (the Man Creche!)

Sweetie Time

Saturday morning saw lots of kayaks being put on lots of cars by the handful of blokes before heading off for our trips for the day. Our trip was for "A Challenging Day Paddle".  Marion, Alice, Anna, Julie and I set off from  Kilchatten Bay with Justine leading us over to Little Cumbrae , stopping on the way for our compulsory sweetie stop!

Millport

According to the map, the icecream shop should be here!

The whole point of paddling!

So far the trip isn't proving to be too challenging, that is until we reached Millport on Great Cumbrae, where we had to choose our flavour of ice cream, any flavour with the exception of Irn Bru was loverly. After lunch, we were planning on heading up the side of Great Cumbrae, however the wind had picked up considerably, so Justine decided to head back a bit sooner. There were times Kilchatten Bay never seemed to be getting closer. Just as it was, 2 porpoises appeared swimming between the boats. The trip did eventually turn into "A Challenging Day Paddle" after all.

Stuck in the wrong direction

Afterwards a lovely meal supplied by Ettrick Bay Tea room was quickly scoffed before heading round to the big tent to be given a talk by Justine on her recent trip (she only returned the previous Tuesday)along the Aleutian Islands.

Ettrick Bay

Esther limbering up!

 

Next day our choice was "Loving The Wet Stuff". Boats were unloaded, reloaded, humphed across beaches by the handful of blokes. Off everyone went in their various directions to their various choice of activities. Loving the wet stuff was being run by Lesley . We started off by getting in, out and round about our boats, getting used to balancing. We were working up to having a try at Greenland rolls. Lesley then gave us a wonderful demo of what we could aspire to with lots of work and yoga to keep flexible.

Lesley making it look very elegant

Bathtime!

Kit rinsing

Whilst all our paddling was going on, the handful of blokes were allowed time off to do their own bit of paddling - just not with us!

Blokes challenging day paddle

Next day the wind had really picked up. Everyone was going to have challenging paddling whether they liked it or not! We headed over to Port Bannatyne to have a session on turning in the wind - well, we certainly had the wind!

Wind? What wind?

 It was a great weekend, learnt lots and made lots of new friends.