Tim was on the phone, fancied doing Sea Palling if I was up for it as he was going to get the afternoon off. With such a good forecast of very light winds from the southwest it looked perfect. I didn’t fancy waiting around the house all day though and was already thinking further afield. Weybourne in fact. I needed a pouting for a point and knew they would be there. I also wanted a sandeel for another which I could get there while feathering for mackerel for friends and freezer. I had a sea scorpion there last year and could possibly even chance a rare wrasse if my luck was in; with calm sea I’d be able to fish the wreck all day long if I had to; two points out of four were likely, the other two possible. Now that Paul had lifted his curse it was time to jinx him too and he was well up for it!
Just after eight I pulled up outside his and we loaded up for the loooooong drive north. Only sixty miles but two hours in Norfolk, and that’s if you can avoid the cows and tractors. Well, it passed pleasantly, in sunshine and with easy traffic and it was pleasant to drive through my old village and look at the house I lived in until just before my sixth birthday. We drove through and past places my dad’s family knew as home and just pootled along, not even worrying too much about Ian’s text to say “You might find the westerly wind and hence sea a twatt at Weybourne”. Yep, it wasn’t as low or in the same direction as stated a couple of hours before. Then Nick: “Just to let you know slightly blowing up here”. Damn. But we were close and the wind was supposed to die away by noon so we planned on having a coffee first.
We pulled up to the sight of a working pay and display machine and a coffee caravan that wasn’t quite ready yet. A look over the shingle with Paul and Nick and it looked fishable for feathers but not for anchoring, provide we could launch and as long as we avoided the sets we’d be fine. So we waited for a not-very-good-nor-cheap-enough-for-instant coffee before unloading and dragging the kayaks down to the shore, having decided a couple of hours on the parking should suffice and a further ticket would be got if need be. Some beach anglers turned up and beat us to the water’s edge.
Right, here we are. I give Nick a briefing as he’s not sure about the size of these. See here? The big ones? Watch them, time spent now is good time. There’s three or four and then look, behind them the power and height have gone and it’s a lot calmer…and here comes the next set. Wait, wait for the last one of the set and then go. Be ready, pull the yak in, jump in with your paddle ready to go and go…five minutes watching beats ten minutes looking for kit…the set waves are dumping at around 3ft, the followers half that at most. I wade in to my lower thighs, wait, pull the yak forward, jump on and dig in with the paddle in one fluid motion and I’m out, dry. I turn fifty yards out and watch, just dropping he one feather rig down in the meantime.
Excuse me? Really? Haha, they’re not going to believe this, I don’t. twelve feet of water maybe, fifty yards out, they’re on the beach and I’m into the first mackerel. Within a minute. I have bait.
That’s it, Paul is straight out, nicely done although he’s a bit swamped. He’s excited and happy. Now for Nick. Nope, doesn’t quite manage the timings but this is new to him. I see what’s going wrong and it’s a very simple fix. I give Paul my rod and return to the beach, surfing in but having the following wave give me a soaking when I get sucked back before I jump out. Never mind.
I talk through it with Nick and then we wait. I tell him to go in further, not be in a hurry to launch or start from ankle height…I watch the waves, tell him to keep his yak in the left hand, paddle in the right (he’s right handed)…now! Jump in and go and I give the yak a shove to give him a headstart and he’s up and away and out. I follow behind, retrieve my rod from Paul, drop it down, go over to Nick and talk through the launch. I say a couple of sentences then have to tell him to excuse me as I have another three good mackerel on the rod…one of which jumps back over the side. I have tea.
But sadly they destroyed my size 6 Fladen Lumi Flasher sabikis, such a tangle! I go to normal coloured feathers but lose them on the wreck first drop along with a wedge and a 2oz lead. Yes, I’ve now paddled to the wreck and lassoed a posts ticking out, that was an effort in itself, the swell picking me up and throwing me towards it each time I got close enough to get the cord over but I soon managed and with the cord coming from my anchor reel I let the line out and allowed the sea to push me away from danger.
I couldn’t see down, it was too rough for that today even though the water was clear so it was drop and hope. Between the wind, swell and tide I got moved around too much and so I ended up losing a set of feathers, another set (that’s two wedges and two leads gone) then a size 6 rig with lead (made from the tangled sabikis) and then another the next drop after I got my pouting point! Just the one and a long way to come for one of those, especially a small but I was happy!
Back it went and with half an hour before the parking ticket expired I headed back on a slow drift and paddle to the launch point. Nick landed about this time and sat waiting. Paul was still trying to jig some mackerel up and we chatted a bit as he bobbed about.
I bobbed about a bit too, but I was fishing luckier and got my lesser sandeel for my second point.
Then I hooked the rig onto some obstruction and lost it. Time to go. Happy, I returned and surfed into the beach while Paul, determined, stuck it out in the hope of mackerel or sandeel. Meanwhile I chatted with Nick and tied on a spinner, during the course of which he told me ‘Oh, he’s gone over’. I looked around and sure enough he had. I had to start my knot again.
He got his rods and that back on but was still floundering like a flounder as I cast. Then he had a go and it seemed that he might have a bit of difficulty so I decided to be nice and go and see if he wanted a hand.
He was determined to do it himself and not swim in either but things weren’t going his way at all. He’d got a pint or two of water in each leg, weighing them down which made the sliding on difficult, he’d left his bulky fleece on because of the wind and that had soaked up a load too and pulled his PFD up (he’s not as bulky as he looks in the photos) and, the Tetra being a bit small for him (it’s my daughter’s) made the platform unstable in the swell, especially when it tipped towards him and water went in through the centre hatch.
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4NwKb8H8S8[/video]
A valiant effort to be sure, dogged determination that only failed because of the excess water inside his suit and the yak which tipped him the two times he got on and in (he’s self-rescued plenty of times before) but it was not to be and he did need that hand with an assisted rescue…you can see from the photos how much water is in both the cockpit and the bottom of his drysuit.
Right, back to the cars…the shingle bank beating us with big sticks every foot of the way!
…and so, soaked to the skin, we left the car park for the café at the top of the road for a cracking coffee and a natter as we were in no real rush as Tim had only just left work. Soaked through, Paul still insisted he was happy to go onto Sea Palling and we bade farewell to Nick after a pleasant hour and went off to lose ourselves in the roads around Cromer…
No comments:
Post a Comment