I’ve been out of training much of the last week due to one ‘thing’ and another. That ‘thing’ being a wee human with a runny nose spreading diseases in my house. My daughter. However, there are no such things as setbacks here at West Coast Kayak Challenge HQ, only opportunities. When you can’t train you can get stuck in to the paper based work.
Nautical charts are expensive and I need a lot to cover the west of Scotland. I can’t afford to buy a full folio BUT I’ve been very kindly lent an entire folio of big old ‘Admiralty’ charts for the west of Scotland by my friends at the SportScotland National Centre Cumbrae. This is great for planning but will be useless while I’m journeying. They also gave me some of the Clyde Cruising Clubs books with tidal information and other interesting bits and bobs that I’ll need to refer to. A very useful set of resources for my mid winter planning, many thanks to them.
There are 5 ‘Imray’ charts that cover the area I’ll be paddling. I’ve got 3 of the 5. These I may well take for reference, though the jury is still out on that as space will be very limited. I hope to avoid carrying these.
What has been a big Brucey bonus was a big 50% off sale I spotted online. I got northern Britain at 1:50000 scale, that’s almost half the UK, for as cheap as chips. I’ve been trawling over it and I reckon I can get my coastal mapping down to an amazingly compact 20 maps, at A4 size. Once they’re printed double sided and laminated I’ll only have to carry 10 waterproofed sheets of A4. Some of that will be at an equivalent of 1:100000, but the trickier bits will be as intended, no need to carry bulky landranger maps.
The spare bedroom of our home has been overtaken, the desk just isn’t big enough, but the guest bed is perfect for laying charts on.
This has all been topped off just lovely by two Christmas gifts;
A 2011 Almanac with all the tide times I’ll need.
And a new pair of wellies because the leaky ones fully split. No more polly bagged feet for me, no sirree!
Simple things, dry feet are happy feet….
