The Three Mile High Club…28/08/2013

The Three Mile High Club…28/08/2013 Well maybe not high, out more like. Three mile out club. Doesn’t have the ring to it though really. Better explain what I’m on about then! The three mile bank. Running north to south, roughly, for quite a way in the vicinity of Lowestoft, is this lovely little bank and drop off that’s been featuring heavily in the reports from Lead Us and Cleveland Princess of late and which I’ve fished from both boats with excellent results. I’d never heard of it until a few months back when Fisher mentioned it when he had a very good spurdog; it’s been on my radar since then (not a real radar, that’d be stupid on a kayak). With roker and hounds out there now not to mention the off small tope I was just waiting for the right conditions… Forecast was great. Low winds, dropping towards late afternoon, warm, bright, tides easing down towards neaps from big springs, onshore wind to help me back. Okay, maybe some slight chop and a bit of swell over the banks but doable. I knew Colin was going to be out there as he had a party that was affiliated to the company I work for so I’d have a welcome hand if things went wrong (this would be a solo effort due to the difficulties) and when I’d spoken to him earlier he said that Brian was also out there. Safe as houses then! They’re also more visible than me and show up on radar so if I was reasonably close I’d be safe from shipping. And Colin said there were fish about, also giving me the numbers so I could find them easily enough, fortunately as it turned out as I’d assumed he was further north where we’d been a few weeks prior. Tides-wise I couldn’t go as early as I’d have liked. Tides run longer out there than inshore and the flood seemed to have been held back a bit. I’d have liked to have gone at ten really but twelve was looking more feasible; as it was the flow was such that one was the correct time and that was when I went, bang on. Launch point was the end of the road. From a paddling point of view I’d have been better suited to go north and launch from Tramps or Links, have the flow giving me less hindrance but this would involve leaving a car up there and I didn’t know for sure where I’d land or when; I may have to abandon and come in early, I may end up downtide, I may not wish to wait for the flow to get me back and we’ve only got roofbars on one car. So across the tide it was then. Flat sea at the beach, I paddled straight out aiming for the green Stanford Channel marker buoy, trying not to go too far south so I had to aim off. I had 3.3 miles to go, straight line (it was around a mile extra in reality) but only a mile’s drift to play with. It was fun over the inner banks with just a few feet below me and once I hit the deeper water again the flow picked up rapidly. The Stanford cans were 1/3 of the way and the tide was racing here as I was positioned to pass between them. I elected to reposition myself instead to get the best lighting on the red can for a photo. Then to carry on, try and get offshore of the South Holm Cardinal while still north of it; done. I kept going, finally spotting Brian about level with the Newcomb cardinal, just further out, and soon after spotting Colin just uptide of him. Aim off, keep going… Finally they were getting closer. Looking at my chartplotter I could see they were about on the contour line. This showed as a flat bank of 57ft with the deeper water beyond them. I thought about getting on the radio or phone but the tide was quicker again and I’d drift downtide which just showed deeper water. Besides, I’d promised my wife that I had friends out there and the life assurance policy would pay the mortgage off anyhow. I would have kept going and said hi too but I didn’t want to go past and I didn’t want to come backwards and I wasn’t going to drop anchor too close. A few reasons for that, one being that if I went north and slipped anchor I’d risk hitting them or snagging my warp on theirs and if I went south I’d have their lines coming down towards me. If I went either side and the Scupper did its swinging trick I’d be a pest and if they were uptiding I could be in the way. The main one though is that it’s just bloody rude to crowd someone on open sea. Not, as Brian suggested, because I was naked again! So I dropped anchor, south of where I wanted to be because paddling against the flow here was hard work. I’d already gone across the tide at a 3.4 knot average for an hour and I had fish to catch. It seemed to take rather a long time to hit bottom, I was not in 57ft. the swells were noticeable too. Not uncomfortable but I knew they were there. I kept the reel in my hand and waited until the warp was out far enough and then waited some more, rocketing backwards and bouncing a bit. Thought so, too deep for this flow, I’d have to anchor from the bow. Easily solved – and the reason I have a large capacity reel – I let more line out and shuttled the carabiner to the front, swinging gently and then allowed it to tighten again before putting the reel in place forward of the rudder pedals. Well it was nearly high water and this tide was pretty fearsome. A lot of water was coming through and my feet were making a hell of a racket as they broke some of it up. I cast both rods uptide with no real expectation that the 10oz breakaways would hold and sent a text to the two skippers. “No 1 mile banks about?” Patchy signal, Colin couldn’t get me so called on the VHF. Said I was too deep. Brian said the same soon after on the phone. It seems that Navionics missed the gully that I was in and that it is pretty much vital to be bang on the contour line. I could do nothing about this now though, I couldn’t pull anchor and redeploy, not in this tide and I’d be a mile down before I was in a position to drop again anyway. I was here for the duration. I settled down to fish. I had no certainty I was holding bottom and quite frankly I didn’t want a big fish while this tide was running and I was facing backwards; a good roker would require me to cut my anchor line and follow it downtide. I pulled up and went to cast further uptide; snagged the carry handle. I called my wife, so she knew I had a signal. I called her back a minute later, as I was putting he phone away I had a porpoise broach three times ten yards off my flank. Brilliant! It was an hour and a half before I could safely spin around to fish downtide. That was better, now fishy fshy, here fishy fishy! Now, brian had said to me ‘I’m not saying you won’t catch fish there’ which I took as him saying ‘I’m saying you won’t catch fish there’. And he was right. They were both catching fish. See? Like I ‘ve said before, listen to the skippers! Haha, hiding to nothing! Me? I was almost down to the backing just to try and hold bottom! It started to ease off, Lowestoft Provider (I think) came through the middle of us, heading for port. It came up to primetime and then I heard Colin start up. He pulled anchor and headed off home. Soon after I heard Brian had his engine running and they too hauled anchor. He popped over to see me… “Do you want a tow?” “No thanks, you’re alright, it’s only an hour’s paddle” “Are you sure, the offer’s there” “No, thanks, it’s alright. As much as I’d enjoy the ride I’ll be fine.” Now that’s really nice. Thank you again mate! I’d probably have ended up in the water though, thinking about it. Perhaps one to try with an empty boat to see. Oh, I added “Anyway, I haven’t caught a fish yet” with a profanity thrown in for good measure. Laughing and waving they all went in. I still didn’t get a fish. I think I had a knock but I was doing something and don’t know if it was my arm instead; it certainly didn’t develop into anything and so after half an hour I span around and hauled anchor. Should I put feathers on? Hmm. Long way back. No. I got 300 yards and then the water was twice as clear. I put feathers on and drifted around slack; I’ve not had a Lowestoft kayak mackerel, that’d be a great result! I passed over a couple of wrecks and some contour lines, I jigged and jagged and gave up, empty handed and headed in for the first buoy…then the second…then the red Stanford marker. The windfarm cats were all heading in. I saw one coming in on my course and thought it best to advise him of my presence. Good call – he had me in sight (probably already had but we’re not all that prominent so it pays to make sure) but made sure he gave me a good wide berth and it also gave warning to the one following behind as well as establishing that I wasn’t in trouble, wasn’t a hazard and could be contacted further if there were any concerns or warnings required. I passed the cans, 2/3 of the way back now and phoned my wife to say I was on my way in and would be landing in half an hour. I then called again and asked her to put a couple of beers in the freezer for later; she told me she was about to ask about that and did I want her to bring them down to the beach with some nibbles as it was a nice evening. Sounded good to me! There’s something rather splendid about sitting on the beach with a cold beer in the evening, even for a very infrequent drinker like myself. Especially after a good workout. Just time for one more text to Colin and Brian: “Yippee! Squid for tea again!”