Ravenglass Seaquest - 5th June 2016

Fine weather greeted the competitors that gathered on Ravenglass beach for the annual seaquest orienteering event. This event is a 3 hour "score" event where you try and collect as many controls as possible, each control being 10, 20 or 30 points, and then you get time penalties as deducted points for any time taken over the three hours.

I decided to head off up the Esk collecting the controls on the right bank. I managed to find the controls without any difficulty and I was feeling pretty good as I made the turn at the top of the river just through the road bridge. On the return I was now paddling against the incoming tide so I had to eddy hop my way back towards Ravenglass, this time collecting the controls on the other bank. My tactic seemed to pay off as I made up a couple of places on the return and surprisingly John Willacy wasn't out of sight!

I normally budget 90 minutes for the Esk, 30 minutes for the Mite and then 60 minutes for the Irt, and I was pretty much on schedule as I turned into the Mite estuary. Again I collected controls on my right on the way up, which actually meany I only left one control in the middle of the estuary for the return.

Still on schedule, I then started making my way up the Irt. By this time the tide was starting to go out, and I just made the shortcut across into the Irt to reach a control on a fence. This required me to get out of my boat and to jog over to the control to clip it. I then returned my boat that I had hauled up out of the water and place it back in the water in what I thought was deep enough water for me to get going again. Unfortunately once I was back in I was still beached, and I used by paddle to try and pull myself into deeper water. Crack!... I'd exerted too much pressure on my paddle and snapped the shaft.

So another early finish. Luckily I wasn't far from the event start/finish so I could J-stroke with a single paddle back to Ravenglass beach.

About 20km paddled.