5am, alarm goes off. 530, drysuited and booted and I’m on my way. 6am sees me pull up next to John by the launch to a cracking sunrise; what a beautiful day to die.
It looked calm as we got ready to go.
It was still calm as we launched and headed south.
We ran over the White Swan, marked by a bit of swirling and down past Corton without too much in the way of disturbance from rebounds. A few eddies, swirls and bumps just north of Lowestoft harbour were about as much as we had to contend with apart from a bunch of boats exiting the harbour mouth. Stil calm we carried on, avoiding stopping at mine for bacon sarnies and thought we saw a seal at Kessingland but it turned out, bizarrely, to be a bucket.
John was loving it, having never done more than 4 miles in one go before.
The last 4 miles wasn’t so loved though and by the time we arrived at Southwold pier he’d had enough.
I was starting to lose interest too.
Well, it was 17.7 miles and we’d paddled continuously including going against wind and tide for the last hour or so, lesser mortals may have found this tiring.
I was just happy to land without falling in for once.
Time for a drink.
Of note was the fact that this supposed massive tide was rubbish, we never got much tidal assistance and it never seemed to have much speed, nor did it tally with my tidal software in any way; times seem at least one hour out and speeds completely fictional. A month ago I did the first half with another mate and we would have smashed this time by at least 40 minutes for the full journey due purely to conditions. Also of note was my not having to wait for John in his Ultra. Heavier and wider made no difference and we were evenly matched until the final leg when going against the elements; that was certainly food for thought.
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