My folding kayak, which hadn't seen water since June 2017, finally got an outing yesterday. Plans to get out kayaking early in the year were thwarted by fickle weather - but yesterday morning the stars aligned long enough (just long enough) for a successful trip to Embalse de Negratin. For a sort of 'shakedown' paddle to get back into the swing of things.
I didn't have anywhere in mind when I launched onto glassy calm water at Playa de Freila, just 'pootled' around an area I had been to before. But it did all look different because winter rain had raised the water level in the reservoir, which altered the shoreline and changed the shape and size of inlets.
I didn't recognise this inlet at all.
Stopped here for lunch and a leg stretch. The edges of the reservoir tend to be gooey, sticky stuff, so a stone and shingle 'beach' to step out onto is a good find.
This was the first outing with my experimental fore-deck - to keep a bit of spray, and more importantly the hot sun, off my lunch bag.
The view from my lunch bag.
Heading back to Playa de Freila.
Reflections.
The noise from the power boat and the jet-ski rather spoiled the tranquility as I got nearer to Playa de Freila. Fortunately they weren't out for long before the owners sought refreshments in that bar overlooking the water. They did go out again for another zoom around after I landed, but were soon back in that bar again.
A thunder storm had been forecast for the afternoon and sure enough, as I started to dismantle my kayak, the sky darkened, a wind whipped up waves on the water and then the rain came - just as I put the last bits away in the back of the van. Phew! Don't think we've seen the end of fickle weather just yet.
This was also my first quiet paddle with my Garmin GPS thingy - which informed me that I'd paddled 5.7 kilometres and when I was paddling at a nice steady pace I was achieving between 3.5 and 4.0 kilometres per hour. Not that I really needed to know any of that. My watch told me I'd been on the water for nearly three hours.
