9 little ducks...

In the Netherlands there is a story for children about 9 little ducks, in the end there is only 1. Regarding seakayaking in Llanca the story is similar today. Due to yesterday's weather-forecast for this Wednesday, the organizers of the Paddle-week wisely decided to divert with the paddling activities to a sheltered inland river-estuarium. A few "ponents" (seakayak-coaches) that weren't needed on the river, however made an appointment for a challenging paddle on the sea. Some elected, experienced participants were invited to join. A group of 9 paddlers would go out. This morning the weather turned out to be even a bit rougher and because of a lot of different reasons, one after the other member of this elected party did withdraw. At the end only Bernhard, Manuel and I remained.

The forecast for the Northern Girona region was exact: Northern winds up to 7 Bft. We experienced what a "Mar gruesa" means. Alas I can't show any "on the water-photos" of this sea, because I didn't want to pick a hand from the paddle to take pictures. Neither did Bernhard. People who paddle more with us, will know what that means. We fought two hours against the wind and then surfed back in just half an hour. It was a joy, but heavy. Manuel soon changed his greenland-paddle for the storm-paddle. I enjoyed looking at the grace of Manuel's paddling style. He really is a master in traditional style kayaking! I was paddling as the last of the pack, not only because I wanted to keep an eye on my paddling partners ;-) I admit that some people are stronger than I!