My last two kayak trips have been disaster. We sit and follow every weather forecast religiously, we look at surf heights and wind speeds, we follow the web cams as soon as there is light.
And we still end up driving for an hour and hitting a wall of impenetrable fog. Hanging around in the car park for two and half hours hoping it'll clear isn't a bundle of laughs.
Why are we still getting these fog banks this late in the year? This is more typical of May / early June, not mid-July. Guess it's basically because the sea temperatures are way down to what they normally are by now. Plain and simple - no sun, no warm air currents. And far, far too much rain.
Second attempt: oh dear, what was that windguru? Almost no wind and a 4 foot swell with an 8 second period?
I think not. Far more like a 6 foot swell. More snotty, horrible misty wet conditions. With sea dirtier after all that river run-off pouring into it than I have ever seen it in July. Yep, I still launched. But the fishing was impossible. Swell so big I couldn't keep contact with the bottom to jig, and the fog was continuously circling me and threatening to come in heavy. Plus it rained. And rained. And rained some more.
The one bright point in the day came when a porpoise came right by my kayak. I frantically got out the camera, only to discover it had been on in my pocket and the battery was flat. Of course, by the time I got out my phone in its acquapack, the porpoise had disappeared. The photo above doesn't give any indication of the swell at all (though you might realise if you know the place, that the huge breakers beneath Kettleness are completely hidden), it was distinctly uncomfortable out there. After an hour or so, I gave up fishing the frothy, tree branch-strewn chocolate sea and headed in.
Please, please, can we have some summer? It's nearly autumn for god's sake!!! :-)
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