Up during darkness again, coffee and then a squeeze into my wetsuit – we were hoping there’d be some surf about. It was flat though, Liam informed me but I decided to stay in the half-on neoprene to check it out for warmth in a strong wind.
We hopped in the van and headed for Pakefield. We figured on paddling down and then hopping into his car to pick up my van again once we arrived back in Lowestoft or turning around and heading back if we did it too quickly. Parking at the clifftop we carried the kayaks down and launched into a flat sea. It was very pleasant here.
Too pleasant. It was boring. I persuaded Liam that we ought to head offshore and go and bounce around over the banks where we could see waves crashing. He wasn’t convinced but followed me anyway, as he has on a couple of interesting occasions ;D
Well, we kind of knew when we had arrived. And so we bounced around and paddled about and failed to pick up anything rideable in all the confusion of the turbulence water. An hour or so of just bumbling around saw us deciding to head back, against the tide and headlong into the wind (force 5-6) to the car park and more of the same followed before finally heading in, the last few hundred yards right in close to the shoreline to avoid the boredom of flat water. I thought he was going to tip with one freak wave but he saved himself sadly.
We chose sand to land on and I went in first to film him trying to extricate himself; no problem and he stayed dry, from the knees up anyway. Then it was back to the van to strap the kayaks on with wet and frozen colds that became painful in the biting wind up on the clifftop. My feet and fingers feeling horrendous by the time I drove away. No, I don’t like wearing wetsuit boots but at least the suit did what I paid for and I was warm and dry, even when I rinsed it off in the bath when I got home.
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