In August, I went on my first sea kayaking trip. I was looking forward to the expedition nature of it and to a good day's exercise, but what I wasn't expecting was the exhilarating nature of the paddle!

As we were packing our boats, I learnt that due to the volume of these boats and being designed to be paddled fully loaded, sea kayakers do day trips in luxury! I clearly didn't have enough 'stuff'!

Before leaving the island, I was given some instruction on how to ferryglide across the standing waves. Off we headed towards Portishead. Meanwhile, the wind had changed direction slightly and was now coming straight up the Bristol Channel.

This provided us with some fairly large swell - it was quite exciting surfing down some of the waves, but also a little scary cutting into/over them. But I was comforted by the appearance of Wayne right on my tail! Once a little closer to land, the swell died down and just a little more hard work was required to cross the tidal stream rushing round the headland before we could have a nice break on the mud - I mean beach!

From here to Clevedon was an 'easy' paddle, with just a headwind to challenge us. The final lesson of the day was that the jetty at Clevedon doesn't go all the way down to the sea at spring low water! After a few gruelling metres, I decided the best way to cross the mud is to slide with your weight on the kayak, running with your legs. It's efficient but quite messy!

Total distance = 10 + 3 + 7 = 20 kilometres.

Thanks to Wayne for an exhilarating day on the water/mud!

Check out all the photos by clicking here