The day the coast broken me

The forecast for the day was force 4 gusting 5 northerly.

Here we go the winds are here, I looked at the map and saw simple route -  it is gonna be 20 km of railing the coastline then lunch at Dursey Island after that if conditions allow hop 17 km across Kenmare river (fjord) to Deenish Islands and then we will see.

Normally I would go in as straight line as possible just cutting across bays and make the shortest route but after 10 days of pretty no wind I did not fancy the feeling of being blown into the Atlantic at all.

 

I find that when I spend while in an area I get the feel for the weather pattern but so far there was no weather pattern it was just bloody Bahamas all the time so I played it safe and hug the coast.

When I got to White Ball Head I had to do turn to the north and go into the wind for a km.

It was definitely more to the upper part of force five scale but I noticed that the wind might be accelerating from the valley in front of me. I was hoping on the other side of Dursey island the wind might not be so bad.

As we are enjoing the ride and Quantum is cutting through the waves like knife through butter still maintaining her speed above 5 km/h I notice big bird just above me. First I thought it would be black-backed seagull but it looked too big for it, the colouring was right but not the shape of wings and the style of flight so I thought it might be gannet then, they fly similar like that but they do not have black backs. As it glided just few meters in front of my kayak I realised it must be an albatross. And it actually was a freaking albatross just in front of me absolutely massive. For while it was in line with a black-backed and the seagull looked like a sparrow compared to the magnificent gliding Beast.

 

When I landed on Dursey and had lunch I prepared for the crossing 17 km of open water in force 4/5 head wind pretty choppy conditions. I estimated the speed is gonna be about 5 km/h for the crossing plus worst case scenario of 4 hours. My contingency plan was that if the wind gets stronger I can always turn around and zap it back at mach 3 speed.

I got rid of 6 litres of spare water and left just my camelback with 2.

Prepared some peanuts and crushed biscuits and put them into my buoyancy. There is gonna be no day hatch opening for this section, too choppy for that.

After an hour into the crossing the inevitable happened the Irish coast has broken me.

I have paddled 8 thousand kilometres on various expeditions and I always managed to find a shelter or somehow managed to pee in a bottle and never had to piss myself.

There we go then it had to happen sooner or later I just started to piss myself into the neoprene shorts. First it was feel of shame but it was quickly followed by feel of really pleasant warm and I thought hmmm that is what is it gonna be like when I am 70 hmmm not bad at all.

The rest of the crossing was quite uneventful I was happily sloshing in my own piss for another 2 hours and was circled by gang of shearwaters what a beautiful birds just gliding above the surface. I added twice more to my sloshing juice and proper marinaded ended on beautiful sandy beach at 9 in the evening, pulled the kayak up and went for a quick dip into the sea...