Author Topic: Paddling in London?  (Read 9311 times)

UKRiverSurfers

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Re: Paddling in London?
« Reply #15 on: February 20, 2015, 05:15:33 AM »
UKRiverSurfers has reached out to me and hopefully if our schedules align, we'll be able to meet up for a paddle.

Its in the diary :)
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Area 10

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Re: Paddling in London?
« Reply #16 on: February 20, 2015, 06:26:46 AM »
I plan on bringing neoprene. Growing up in New England, I feel that I am pretty well-accustomed to cold water, although I did a training paddle this morning in Dana Point and felt cold despite water and air temps of about 58.
UKRiverSurfers has reached out to me and hopefully if our schedules align, we'll be able to meet up for a paddle.

Ahh fook! We've lost you! If you were here you'd be stylin' in 4 degree air and 38 degree water. (That's degrees F for our euro friends, not your dainty degrees C)
Yep, that's proper cold... our water gets that cold but in the South of the UK anyway, our air doesn't. Although it's always about the wind really anyway, isn't it? It was 5C here on the beach yesterday and I was fine playing football with my kids in a t shirt because there was only a breath of wind (8 knots).

kayadogg

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Re: Paddling in London?
« Reply #17 on: February 20, 2015, 07:17:54 AM »
I plan on bringing neoprene. Growing up in New England, I feel that I am pretty well-accustomed to cold water, although I did a training paddle this morning in Dana Point and felt cold despite water and air temps of about 58.
UKRiverSurfers has reached out to me and hopefully if our schedules align, we'll be able to meet up for a paddle.

Ahh fook! We've lost you! If you were here you'd be stylin' in 4 degree air and 38 degree water. (That's degrees F for our euro friends, not your dainty degrees C)

Trust me Jim, I'm bummed too. I've seen my tolerance slip over the past year and a half that we've been in SoCal. I'm hoping it won't take long to get re-acclimated once we move back to RI but I've heard it can be a long adjustment. I got a picture from a friend yesterday, taken from the beach where my fiance used to live, near Rome Point, just north of the Jamestown bridge. The bay was frozen solid out to Fox island...never seen that before. It's definitely a cold one for you guys especially north of lil Rhody.

Its in the diary :)
Awesome. Looking forward to that more than anything else next week. Now if I can just get through the flight...

UKRiverSurfers

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Re: Paddling in London?
« Reply #18 on: February 27, 2015, 04:49:56 AM »
Great to meet you today Kayadog... :)

What a perfect morning it was for a paddle on the Thames, even if a little slow upstream :)



We definitely need to hit the coast next time :D
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addapost

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Re: Paddling in London?
« Reply #19 on: February 27, 2015, 12:54:07 PM »
This forum is great! Good on you UK for hosting a visitor.

John, everything is frozen, the entire Westport river, the entire Taunton river/Mt Hope Bay/Sakonnet river is all frozen solid. Maybe it's happened once or twice in a hundred years but I've never seen it.
Bunch of old shit

SeaMe

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Re: Paddling in London?
« Reply #20 on: February 27, 2015, 03:09:50 PM »
Great to meet you today Kayadog... :)

What a perfect morning it was for a paddle on the Thames, even if a little slow upstream :)

That's a beautiful photo! Just to make sure I'm not going blind, there aren't any paddleboarders in it, right?
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UKRiverSurfers

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Re: Paddling in London?
« Reply #21 on: February 28, 2015, 03:16:09 AM »
This forum is great! Good on you UK for hosting a visitor.

John, everything is frozen, the entire Westport river, the entire Taunton river/Mt Hope Bay/Sakonnet river is all frozen solid. Maybe it's happened once or twice in a hundred years but I've never seen it.

Hey thanks :)

On the freak weather thing.... 2015 is an El Nino year.
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UKRiverSurfers

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Re: Paddling in London?
« Reply #22 on: February 28, 2015, 03:17:39 AM »
Great to meet you today Kayadog... :)

What a perfect morning it was for a paddle on the Thames, even if a little slow upstream :)

That's a beautiful photo! Just to make sure I'm not going blind, there aren't any paddleboarders in it, right?

No there are not :)

It was the sunrise at our put in, just before Kayadog arrived.

We did take some nice shots on the water, so watch this space :)
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kayadogg

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Re: Paddling in London?
« Reply #23 on: March 02, 2015, 11:26:53 AM »
THIS is why the Zone is awesome...

I was just in the UK for a week on business. Over the past 5 years, any time I travel anywhere, I immediately think about the possibility of paddling wherever I’ll be. Thinking about the possibility of paddling in the Thames, a few miles outside of London, had me really excited. I only had one window of a few hours where it could work, if it all. And that was just me. Now I needed to find a board, paddle and way to get them to the river. I received a PM from UKRiverSurfers after I first posted about this trip. We had a few messages back and forth and he immediately he said he would love to try to meet up, despite being about half an hour away. We stayed in touch in the week leading up to my trip and we touched base once I was on his soil. As I previously mentioned, I had a very small window where this could work which usually means the weather will understand that and shit all over my plans. Long story short, that 3 hour window was looking like the most beautiful part of the week, sunny and clear skies. It’s on!

UKRiverSurfers (Dave), graciously offered to meet me at Caversham Bridge in Reading, the town that I was staying in. This meant just a quick 20 minute walk for me to meet him. I was up early, fueled up and hit the streets. First time wearing booties in almost a year and a half - I was stoked! This is the paddling I used to do and couldn’t wait. I see Dave and introduce myself and we meet for the first time, other than on the Zone. He had already unloaded his boards, two very awesome sleds: a white and blue Starboard K15 and a 14’8 Starboard Mark Raaphorst design. Did I expect anything else from this man given his previous posts and expeditions? No. Dave pulled out a sizable, but not huge, dry bag with some gear in it and lashes it to his board. I replayed a line that Creek had written in my previous thread…”Be careful Johnny, you might end up going on a 300 mile expedition without realizing it!”.  I jokingly told Dave that I was intending to fly back home later today and he laughed. We hit the water, me on the Raaphorst shape and Dave on the K15.

The Thames was flowing at a decent clip but nothing that made it impossible to paddle up river. We were bullish*tting and just taking in the beauty of the morning as we paddled up river. At one point we came to a fork, with a “Channel” sign pointing left and what looked like a little tree-covered creek to the right. We went right. This led us by a very cool old house and bridge and instantly made me homesick for New England. We continued on up river while Dave provided me with all kinds of interesting facts, information and more about the river, paddling and life in the UK. It was great.

Eventually we came to a gentle slip-style bank and Dave paddled over and stepped off his board. “Fancy a coffee?” Hell yes I fancy a coffee right about now. This is the part of our trip that made my day. Dave opens his dry bag and pulls out a few things. He instantly blows up a ThermaRest seat pad for me to sit on. He then pulls out a bag which can’t be more than 11 or 12” long and about 4-5” wide. He whips out a collapsible chair and has it setup in about 10 seconds. We both sit down and Dave then pulls out his kitchen. He then proceeded to pull put a small propane burner. He turned it on, threw a few sparks from his fire starter and the tank ignited. Filled up a bowl with water and then heated it. Once the water was ready, he then made two cups of delicious French Press coffee, complete with milk and sugar if that’s how you wanted it, right there on the banks of the Thames. We relaxed for a bit and Dave talked about surfing the northern shores of Scotland, of some of the longer expeditions he’s done with this same setup. He also tells me about some future paddling he plans on doing but I’ll leave that to him to discuss when the time is right.

We pack up the kitchen and camp and get back in the water. I want to call him Barista Dave now but I stick with Dave. That coffee was really good too, by the way.

Now we’re heading back and we have the flow helping us. We were doing around 5.5mph without really even paddling, taking a stroke once every 5-6 seconds. We made it back to our launch spot in about a third of the time it took us to head out. We put in almost 7 miles without really even trying. We get the boards back up to Dave’s van and we bid farewell. I walk the mile back to my hotel in my wet booties, getting strange looks from all of the locals along the way, but I didn’t care. Made it back just in time to pack my bags, take a quick shower and then check out. Caught the next bus to Heathrow and now here we are.

Dave, thank you again. Paddling with you was the highlight of my week in the UK. Thanks for being so gracious and hooking me up. It was great. I hope you find yourself in the US at some point and you can get some paddling in over here. I also hope that parking ticket wasn’t too much of a kick in the @$$ either. If it was, hopefully that ghost whiskey will ease the pain a little. Until next time. Cheers!

Pictures to follow, I've been having issues posting pictures since I've been back.

kayadogg

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Re: Paddling in London?
« Reply #24 on: March 02, 2015, 11:57:12 AM »
More pics...

kayadogg

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Re: Paddling in London?
« Reply #25 on: March 02, 2015, 11:58:30 AM »
And more... sorry for the photo bomb of this thread.

pdxmike

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Re: Paddling in London?
« Reply #26 on: March 02, 2015, 12:16:29 PM »
Keep posting photos like that and UKRS is going to have foreigners lined up to paddle with him, especially since he's been enticing us with his own photos of his various adventures.  Being able to meet people in person really is a highlight of the Zone.  Glad you guys were able to get together.

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Re: Paddling in London?
« Reply #27 on: March 02, 2015, 12:23:28 PM »
Ha! I wondered where that Starboard Point went. I was offered it (I *think* it is the only one in the UK) at a bargain price a few years ago and was totally dumb to have passed it up... I might have known that, being the canny character that UKRiverSurfers is, he would have been a lot smarter.

Yes, next time leave more time for play and come down to the coast and get wet!

lucabrasi

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Re: Paddling in London?
« Reply #28 on: March 02, 2015, 01:29:43 PM »
And more... sorry for the photo bomb of this thread.
Heck no, post away. Very cool, the trip, get together, and photos.

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Re: Paddling in London?
« Reply #29 on: March 02, 2015, 03:22:59 PM »
Johnny.... what an awesome post!!!!!!

It brings together all the best that SUP and fellow Zoners have to offer.

Great story telling, it conveyed the day perfectly... well done.
So cool that Dave pulled out all the British hospitality for such a short meet-up. I am impressed with his stoke and kindness.

The pictures put it all together. Thanks. I am smiling. ;D ;D ;D

 


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