Buenos Dias!

After a long day we are currently sitting in our awesome Spanish villa, enjoying a beer and feeling pretty stuffed after the pizzas we had for dinner!

After a day of travelling, made slightly stressful by having to ensure that the composite boats made it in one piece, we started the trip the best way possible with a couple of hours of evening surfing in small, clean waves, in sunshine and warm water! The surf forecast here is looking incredibly consistent so I'm really looking forward to the next few days of dialling in the waves and scoping out the standard of the competition!

Time to get some sleep! The plan is to keep this updated over the next couple of weeks, hopefully I'll keep finding time to throw something up here and there so keep an eye out! 

Final Countdown!!

So the training is done, moves are down, fitness is as good as it's going to get...all that's left to do is dry off the gear, take a few days to chill out and then board a plane to Spain for World Championships number one; surf kayaking! 

I'm working on getting those lip moves a little higher, it's slow progress! Photo by Mike Barry.

Since the last update, after I had spent two weeks battling onshore winds before my tent eventually ripped in half in a storm, things have thankfully taken a turn for the better! Shortly after running away from Kerry the first time I was back there with Sheelagh, another member of the Irish Surf Kayak team who kindly lent me a tent and agreed to drive me around to go surfing! Thankfully this time the waves improved, the wind swung offshore and the sun came out so the training could really start in earnest! Aisling, Mick and Ant from the surf team also showed up at various stages and it was great to get some feedback going between everyone which really helped to develop the different moves that everyone was working on.

Sun, surf, Nissan Micra... What more do you need?!

Although we headed up to Clare for a bit of variety in the surf, and to swing by the Doolin Trad Music Festival, persistant westerly winds and a mediocre swell meant that the reefs we were hoping to get to surf never really worked. We kept busy all the same with things like rock climbing, caving and fishing but eventually called it quits and headed back to Kerry, where the curving beach of Brandon Bay picks up a lot of swell and offers more choices in westerly winds. In the end it was a great call and we got a few more days of great waves before deciding it was time to head back home and start preparing for the trip to Spain! 

So that's where things are at right now! The gear is outside drying off, the clothes are in the wash and I'm starting to really get excited about Spain! A few days now and we'll be chilling out in the sun, sipping cold beers after surfing in a new country; I can't feckin wait! 

In terms of life off the water over the last few weeks, one thing that's everywhere in the Brandon Bay area is really cool camper vans, from all over Ireland, the UK and even further afield; especially France, Germany and the Netherlands. Some of these vans have had awesome conversion jobs done to them and along with my experiences in the tent have really got me thinking about doing my one one over the next few months. Does anyone know of any companies who might be interested in buying advertising space on the side of a van that will travel to the majority of kayaking events in Ireland over the next few years?! The people who have brought all these great vans to Kerry, attracted by the surfing, windsurfing and relaxed pace of life down there, are all great to chat to and inspire great ideas for road-trips to the likes of Morocco and Eastern Europe! So any time over the next few days that isn't spent packing for Spain will probably be spent sketching ideas for the inside of a camper van and dreaming of the places that could be visited once it's finished!

Some Things Just Don't Work Out...

So you're out of practise and out of shape after final year in college, you've got two World Championships to train for, cash reserves are pretty scarce from funding trips to said competitions and you don't own a car...what to do? Easy, head to the west coast of Ireland with a tent, bike and surf kayak and spend as much time on the water as humanly posssible! What could possibly go wrong...

So that's what I did when exams were over and I had finished my end-of-college partying. Since there was the possibility of getting the odd day's work in Castlegregory and it has some of the most consistent surf in Ireland that's where I headed. I set up camp in a remote-ish sand dune, right beside the surf of Brandon bay and within cycling distance of a shop, toilets and other essentials. The first few days went to plan, I got out surf kayaking every day in mediocre onshore conditions, and whenever I wasn't on the water I was cycling, running or fishing; generally getting fit again and chilling out after a pretty hectic final few weeks in college. I also did a few hours work here and there running kayaking sessions for Jamie Knox Watersports, which was good fun and a nice injection of cash into the wallet. So far so good, I had everything I needed and there was no reason why I couldn't stay there until it was time to head to Spain for the surf kayak worlds.

Unfortunately the Irish summer weather had other ideas. Firstly the wind came up and the swell dropped off, meaning that opportunities for surf kayak training became extremely limited. This wasn't all bad news. I started windsurfing last year with the UL club, and between the UL people's and Jamie Knox's expert tuition I've been progressing and starting to fall in love with the feeling of flying that you get when you're up at full speed and planing across the surface of the water. Jamie Knox had said that whenever he had groups on the water for activities I could take a set of windsurfing kit out for a spin so when the wind started to pick up towards the start of last week I started having some awesome windsurfing sessions. Over the two weeks I was there I went from being just about able to get the board up and planing to being able to consistantly hold the board there with some element of control. So despite the lack of surf kayaking I was happy enough to hang around and wait for the surf to improve, windsurf all the time, and cycle as much as possible to keep the fitness going in the right direction. 

As soon as predictions for Monday's weather started showing up on the forecast sites it was obvious that it was going to have an effect on my life in the tent. Windguru was showing 100 km/h winds and 8.5 mm of rain for Sunday afternoon, which pretty much made it a duvet and movie day! My tent was nicely tucked away behind a sand dune and had been very well sheltered from some strong westerly winds earlier on in the week, so I stocked up on chocolate and biscuits was happy enough to wait out the storm in relative peace. However on Monday the winds swung around south-westerly, which meant that they blew almost unobstructed around my protective sand-dune and struck my tent at an awkward angle. I spent several hours in the tent, holding it up as best I could and reinforcing it with paddles and other gear as much as possible but unfortunately just before the storm was due to peak it all became too much. My lovely little red tent, which has served me well on many journeys around Ireland, several trips to Europe and a month in Uganda was obviously weakened by all the exposure to the sun and developed a small split beside one of the poles. I went out to try to reinforce it with duct-tape but with no luck, the tent was too wet and the wind too strong for duct-tape to have any hope of staying in place. There was nothing I could do except lie in the tent and watch as the small split grew and grew and eventually split the entire tent clean in two. 

So that was the end of that! I had to wait out the rest of the storm and bail out back to Limerick, to dry out all my belongings and come up with a new plan. So that's where I'm at now, with my gear almost dry, last week's sun and wind-burn nearly healed and getting itchy feet to get back on the water. With a new tent and a slightly better weather forecast I would head back to Castlegregory in a heartbeat as it really had everything I needed to survive for an extended period of time and maximise the amount of training I could do but we'll see what happens. I need a new tent before I head to Canada in August so if anyone has any suggestions for a two-man tent that has lots of room for gear and is good in storms let me hear them!

If anyone is looking for a new sport that gives a similar aaargh-I'm-flying feeling to kayaking or mountain biking, without mountain-biking's risk of colliding with a tree or rock and mangling yourself, then I highly recommend giving windsurfing a go! It can take a little bit of time to get the hang of it, and can be frustrating until you do, but my god is it worth the effort! If you decide to give it a try then go check out www.jamieknox.com. The best tuition from a champion windsurfer and passionate teacher, loads of great kit and a choice of locations nearby to make the most of the conditions on the day. What more could you ask for? I plan to keep it up over the next while, with the eventual goal of getting good enough to try wave-sailing! Combining windsurfing with waves and a big sail to prolong the air-time available looks like a reciepe for an amazingly fun sport!

Clare Glens Paddle for Nepal & Surf Kayak Training

In light of the recent earthquake that devastated Nepal, Jon Hynes and Brian Keogh have started a fundraising initiative to contribute to the relief effort. The idea is that people organise local paddles and everyone who attends contributes a couple of euro to the collection. Loads of events have been organised around the country, from private trips with just a couple of people to major events open to the general public such as the 'Sunset Kayak for Nepal' on Lough Derg on Friday, organised by Mike Jones of the University of Limerick Activity Centre.

Big Eas, at a decent level with a long exposure. By Will Heffernan of WillHeffernanPhotography

Conveniently, it bucketed rain all day Friday and although that was bad news for anyone hoping for a pretty sunset on Lough Derg, it meant that by the afternoon the Glens was running at a crazy high level. Between them, Andrew Regan and Mark Scanlon came up with the idea of using an evening run on the river as a charity event, and use the evening to raise a few euro towards the Nepal fund. With a surf kayak training event planned for that weekend, and an exam on Monday, I was pretty adamant that I wasn't going to paddle on Friday and was going to get loads of study done instead. Even after Mark rang me and started giving me abuse down the phone I was still sure that I wasn't going to go paddling. But about 10 minutes later I had the car packed and was on the road to the Glens. I never had the best self control in the world...

I got to the Glens to find Bowsie and Bosco geared up and ready to go, with Mark, Simon and Andrew expected to show up from UL shortly after. We ended up having a great evening on the river, with water levels starting at about 150cm and dropping fast over the next couple of hours. We fitted in three quick runs on the river before it got dark, with no drama and lots of stylish lines hit! It was great to get back on a river after a bit of a lull coming up to exams, and having a solid crew who know how things work really cuts down on the amount of faffing involved compared to typical club trips! Afterwards we all chucked a couple of euro into a pot to be added to the fund for Nepal. If anyone would be interested in either contributing to the fund or organising an event get in contact with Brian from totalexperience.ie and I'm sure he'll let you know what the story is!

Happy out after a great evening on the water! By WillHeffernanPhotography.

Procrastinating from studying this year has been pretty varied, including buying a smart phone, learning how to use Snapchat (eoinkeyes, if anyone is interested!), going windsurfing, paddling, surfing, spending way too much time watching videos online and writing totally unnecessary blog posts... Pretty nice of the surf kayakers then to organise a training event for this weekend so that I could be productive while not studying! The plan was to do two solid days on the water and camp on Saturday night in between, with ex-world champ and general paddling legend Len Kelleher around for the weekend to give us advice on how to improve our surfing. Unfortunately the weather didn't really play ball and there wasn't a wave to be found on the Clare coast on Saturday morning. We spent a few hours playing frisbee on a beach before getting bored enough to decide that it would be a good idea to check out Crab island, off the coast of Doolin!

The official Paddlesurf Ireland team training camp. Only the best locations will do!

Now Crab island is a world renowned reef break for a reason, and although it was only breaking around 4ft it was still heavy, shallow and breaking in front of a rock shelf! We brought the whole team out to the island and we caught some sweet waves, with people progressing from just nipping in and out on the shoulder of the wave to moving deeper and deeper and getting longer and longer rides. It was great to see everyone, especially the juniors, pushing themselves and catching more and more critical waves however there was a price to be paid! First it was Bernard Walsh who took off too deep on a wave, leaving him stuck in front of the foam as the wave traveled over the reef, clipping a rock and damaging a fin box on the way through. Next, myself and Aisling Griffin got caught in the wrong position as a set came through. Since you can't duck dive a surf kayak, being caught out of position like that is a really bad situation to be in! I got off easy, taking the wave on the head and getting rag-dolled for a second before the wave let me go and I popped up on the back-side of the wave. Aisling wasn't so lucky and got hit by the full force of the wave, ripping her out of the boat along with the thigh-braces which were meant to be holding her in! By the time she popped up the next wave was coming through, which brought her down for another washing-machine spin cycle. Thankfully that was the end of the set and the lads were able to get in and tow her out of the impact zone. The boat wasn't so lucky and got dragged in and bashed around on the reef for a while before Mike Barry was able to get to it and pull it out. Incredibly, the only damage on the boat afterwards was a bit of lifted seam-tape on the tip of the nose, as well as the damaged thigh-braces from the initial impact. Really impressive for a composite boat, I was sure it was going to be totaled after seeing what was happening to it on the inside! Whatever Ride-Kayaks are building their boats from it's good stuff! 

After Aisling had been reunited with her boat, we decided that the team would probably benefit more from surfing a mellower wave which everyone was confident on. We headed back over to Doolin point, where everyone was able to catch lots of waves and get some great feedback from Len after each one. Len also showed that he hasn't forgotten a thing , throwing helixes in the 9ft long IC boat as if he was back in his Pyranha Jed! We finished off the evening with pier-jumping and pizza and then called it a night. The next morning, as soon as we had taken our tents down it started to rain, which quickly turned into a continuous, unrelenting downpour! After a morning coffee at the Rock Shop in Liscannor, we headed for Lahinch hoping that the strong onshore wind that had blown up during the night hadn't totally wrecked the surf. When we got there the tide was in and there was going to be an hour or two of waiting around before any surfing was done. I had originally planned to get an early surf in before heading home to do some study for Monday's exam, so instead of waiting for surf I decided to call it quits and head back to college. Which explains why I'm here writing this now,,, Although it was a bit messy, there was a decent swell in Lahinch when I left which probably cleaned up a bit after the tide came off the rocks. I'm looking forward to hearing how everyone got on out there. We've got a great team atmosphere going at the moment with everyone encouraging each other, giving advice and helping each other improve their surfing. The effect of this is easy to see too, with everyone's paddling coming on in leaps and bounds between team meet-ups. It's great to see and I'm really looking forward to seeing what level everyone is at when we get to the worlds in less than two months time!

Andrew Regan: 'Challenging EDICT'

Andrew Regan just put together a great piece on instructing techniques for kayaking skills. It would be great to open up some discussion on the topic. Check out his document here: Challenging Edict and add your own opinion!