And since then!

Thursday 3rd Sepember saw Iain heading to Derwent Water to work with Paul & Joanne Price who were wanting to try out Canadian Canoeing with a view to buying their own boat if they enjoyed their day.

It was certainly an interesting day and not ideal for beginners with a fairly strong wind blowing onshore at Kettlewell car park and heavy rain showers at times, also, once again, we had had heavy rain overnight and all of the streams were in spate - the picture right gives an indication of the conditions.

Anyway, we set off and managed to find a sheltered area to learn the basic skills of open canoeing and then decided to follow the River Derwent upstream from the lake. This was hard work but we managed over a mile against the flow before deciding enough was enough! Back on the lake we decided to head along to west shore trying to get some shelter from the wind which couldn't make up its mind whether to blow from Borrowdale or the Keswick direction - at times we were being blown sideways along the lake!

With a view to trying to get some shelter, we changed our plan to island hopping
and almost made it to the keswick landings before turning round and heading back to St Herberts Island in order to raft up and make the best of the wind which, with the help of a group shelter, allowed us to sail back almost to the car park - easily the most effortless part of the day.

Despite the difficult conditions Paul & Joanne thoroughly enjoyed themselves and plan to buy their own Canadian canoe in the new year and will be contacting Iain again for a little more tuition later in the year.