600 mile drive for a game of Polo!!!???

Trips away to compete in Scottish Canoe polo division 1 can be quite an epic journey. It is possible to leave on the early ferry Sunday morning and do the 300 mile trip arriving for the 4.30 start. This is asuming there is no delay on the way!

Personaly Iam not a fan of tight scheduals so we tend to leave a day or two early and use the time for some more fun!!

Me and Adam left Saturday morning in Bananavan with 5 Polo boats on the roof and two play boats (and a drum kit) in the back destined to arrive in Stirling at night with running a river on the way.

Steve Mackinnon was meeting us in the small town of Alness just of the A9 with a couple of his friends, when I pulled up and saw that these 3 experianced river runners all had creek boats I felt the butterflies flutter a wee bit!

Alness is only paddleable in spate conditions and as Steve put it 'we must have sacrafised somone in Orkney to the apese the Snow melt god!!' she was running at a good level and was a lovely fast bouncy grade 2-3+ with a few river wide stoppers and pour overs..

Despite this only being Adams second river he nailed it with only one little mishap.. Not his fault though...

That was done and dusted in 45 minutes and we hit the road again not even 2 hours after we had pulled over.

sexy new blades!

The next day saw a trip to Brookbank so I could 'Look at' a sea paddle that I had been eyeing up on the Mitchell Blades website for a wee while now. After a painfull half hour of wanting it badly but knowing that the money would be bettter spent on boring things like bills ....I ended up buying it!

Polo was another hard graft and a couple of big defeats by two far stronger and better teams, followed by what was probably a fair 4-4 draw against the Scarlet ladys.

We then drove for 90 minutes to Pitlochry arriving just in time to catch the chipshop.

A loaded Bananavan

Monday morning and there was talks of surfing at Thurso before the ferry at night but we had 200 miles and boats to pick up from Glenmore lodge. By the time we had put 5 Polo boats, 3 river boats, 2 Open boats (one belonging to Mary S ) and a sea kayak on the the van roof we had run out of time for paddling! All in all we had a full weekend as it was.

A cold but productive weekend

The winter weather continues to bite and although I had a weekend with no other plans I still didn't manage to get out and paddle.

Instead I worked on the old Polo boats that kirkwall Kayak Club bought earlier in the year. This one is Carbon/ Fiber Glass and extremely light, but also this makes it a bit more vunerable to cracks.

I had to build a makeshift tent out of insulation and old bed sheets to contain the heat. Fiberglass needs warmth to set and it is currently -5 in the evenings!!

All set now for next weekends division 1 games!

Getting soft in my auld age!

I haven't been out paddling now for a while, mainly due to lack of time. I opted last Sunday to go for a walk along the cliff tops at Yesnaby. I came across some friends bellow!!

A little bit envious, We amused ourselves at the top!

After a really nice break in the weather last weekend Scotland seems to have been hit by a big freeze!! I will need more motivation now to get outside and get that valuable coaching hours in that I need for my level 2 assessment.

As I was writing this I nipped out and took twa photos!

Precious bananvan!




Although I have not been outdoors too much paddling I do 3 nights per week in the pool. Sundays is helping out with OSCA's training night whilst Tuesdays is Kirkwall Kayak Clubs sessions and friday nights are for Canoe Polo.

For the past couple of months Kirkwall Kayak Club have been preparing a team to play in scottish division 1.

Mostly I have been running the coaching sessions for these which is not an easy task as I dont really know the game very well!

Orkney' A' line up for the start of the game.

We traveled away for the first 4 games last weekend, Some flew down in Torquil's private plane but I took the van down with boats on the roof and did some sea paddling whilst I could.

Giving a 'team talk'!

We quickly realsied that the jump from div' 2 to div' 1 is a massive leap in standards, losing our first 4 games.

Some of the teams have played together for almost 20 years and were very willing to give coaching and tactical advise to us after the games.

My home made polo gaols, made from 50mm drainage pipe!

Orkney 'A' play the next group of fixtures on 12th december. I am looking forward to picking up more training tips and hopefully winning our first games in div 1!

Thursday Evenining paddling restarts

Kirkwall Kayak Club resumed our Bi weekly summer paddling last Thursday.






A nice easy trip around the famous Churchill Barriers was a pleasant starter. Peter and Neil took a closer look aboard one of the block ships.

The ships were sunk during the First World War to block the channels between the Islands of Scapa Flow to protect the Navel base from German U boats.

This proved to be unsuccessful when in 1939 A German sub found a channel between the ships and hit the HMS Royal Oak with the loss of 833 men and boys. After this Winston Churchill commissioned the building of the barriers.

The barriers provided us with shelter from the cool West wind.

Coaching and canoeing

A Few weeks ago Mary organised a weekend of Open boating with Canoe coach 'Biscuit'.
Iam glad to say I thouroghly enjoyed it! The main reason for this was because he allowed us to raft up and sail for an hour os so across Scapa Flow.




Me and Neil enjoying a 'rest'.


The following weekend Me and Peter fired down to Inverness for our level 2 coach training.
Once again This was an excellent weekend. Steve Mackinnon and Dave Rositer doing a sterling job!


Prospective coaches listen to Daves breifing

Peter is missing from this photo.. I guess he will be toasting a scone or something..!

Coach Weekend.... Brilliant!

Just returned from my first two days of Level2 Canoe/Kayak coaching course so my head is buzzing!

Loads of information and some great coaching ideas to think about. This was all delivered excellently by Dave Rossiter and Steve Mackinnon. Dave is a level 5 coach and also started the outdoor centre 'Standing Waves' , his delivery was second to none backed up by steve this was an extremely usefull weekend

Daves coaching style reflects this pose perfectly!

Cant wait to go try out some of my new coaching techniques!!