3 Little Kayak Films

Here's a new departure for my channel - not a cycling adventure but a cycle-enabled kayak adventure. "Adventure" may be an exaggeration but to me, anything that breaks life's routine and gets me out in the open air is an adventure. If you were expecting white water rapids, Eskimo rolls and 7m waves, then you've come to the wrong channel! I've been "doing" boats for most of my life - sailing, rowing and paddling them - I like any boat that doesn't have an engine! A decade ago I took a kayak on my car roof-rack and camped my way down the Wye. I'm now car-less and that means I haven't got a roof rack or even a towing hitch to move boats around, and recently my local sailing club closed. I've been kindly invited to use other people's boats, but these videos show me getting back into independent boating thanks to a small folding kayak. The "Lake" is the smallest kayak made by Oru. I've always been doubtful about these origami boats but I thought I'd give it a go. I bought it for a trip last year, but something came up and I couldn't use it till this summer. The manufacturer claims 20,000 unfoldings - not 2,000 as I say in the video, but even 2,000 is quite a lot - 20,000 is a lot of kayaking! One evening, inspired by a paddle-boarding friend, I took it to the river to see if I could transport it, unfold it and use it. I was only on the water for 20 minutes but I was impressed and had a successful evening. Film 1 was made the following afternoon. I knew the little kayak wasn't fast, but I wanted to know if I would be able to go far enough in it to do a tour I have in mind. I found that the 4 or 5 miles trip I did needed a very acceptable level of effort and neither my back nor arms were excessively tired. After that I was itching to do a camping trip. I wanted to try out a hammock tent too. I have spent one night in it as a hammock in the garden (shockingly, I suffered from sea sickness as the covered hammock rocked, with the horizon invisible to me because of the tent) - but I need it to work as a ground tent too and this seemed a good chance to try it in one of those modes. I like recording my adventures (hence this channel) and I used these trips to experiment with how to film a kayak trip (my drone won't fly over water). For Film 1 I made a float to hold an action camera on a buoyant handle. For filmd 2 & 3 )( which are 2 days of the same adventure) I made a better float with a fin so the wind wouldn't keep spinning it and a firmer socket for the camera's handle. I also got some clamps to attach the camera to the kayak's sides or deck. I hope you agree that these things worked and gave some nice shots? Wild camping: I wish we had a legal right to wild camping in England, but I fear too that some people would abuse that. I try to camp in a way that would be acceptable to me if someone else did it on my land, to be unseen (unless I ask permission), to do no harm and to be polite if I am challenged (as happened once - I was allowed to stay). I leave nothing behind except for discretely watering some hedges - I once found a wild poo left in my garden and I didn't like it so it's not on my wild camp agenda - that's what pubs and cafes are for! In the drought it would be a terrible thing to set someone's land on fire, so for this trip I left all my cooking stoves behind. You can make perfectly good coffee with cold water and I found this very liberating (and weight and time saving) - I'll do it again, sometimes! Car-less. I've known about the greenhouse effect since the 1980's. It's suicidal that we haven't done something about it in time - were supposed to be more intelligent than other animals but we are continuously planning our own extinction! I kept using my car (cos everyone else was) and waiting for government action. Then I started doing more cycling to be greener; I only used my car if I really needed to and soon it was spending months without moving. I enjoyed journeys on my bike! I was becoming healthy, strong and happy! My garage told I must use the car more or it would stop working - so I sold it to them. There was a week of car-less anxiety (of the what-if kind) then years of car-less relief (no MOT, servicing, eye tests, licensing or petrol buying). In an emergency there are taxis! I have had to make sacrifices for a car-less life, and one of those is trailer boating! There are ways round it and it's ok to accept help from people with cars occasionally. But this little Oru Kayak means I can independently take a boat and get on the water again when and where I want - soon I hope to take it on a train ride! Maybe there'll be a video one day! If you haven't hated this one, then maybe you'll watch it when/if it happens! Thanks for watching and reading!