Sea kayaking, lobster creeling and shelter building

Busy day and blue skies at Ardmore

Another busy day at the Adventure School. We always start the day with a run or swim before breakfast, with the swim being the bolder option. We had a team of 12 donning wetsuits and breaking the millpond flat water this morning, with the rest of the group heading out for the run along the edge of the loch.

The Red teams were sea kayaking this morning. Working in their teams and paddling their own sea kayaks they set off to explore the coves and bays of Loch A Chadh-Fi, learning some new skills, looking at the wildlife around the shore, flinging some seaweed at each other and in many cases ending up in the water at some point!

The Blues were out in our workboat, Victoria, lifting their creels in Loch Laxford and looking at the catch. Lots of velvet swimming, shore and small brown crabs and a couple of young lobsters. The catch is scored with points for each creature lifted and returned to the sea, with the number of point corresponding to the rarity of the particular creature. We stopped at Ardmore, the small crofting township where Rebecca and Mark live, to see the small wooden rowing boat that Rebecca’s father used to cross the Atlantic in 1966, and to see Rebecca’s Cape Horn sea kayak.

In the afternoon the Reds and Blues swapped around, with time spent looking at improvised shelters too.

Tomorrow we start with an event called the Athlon, a four stage race involving running, walking with leaky tubes of water, a blindfolded kayak and a swim, all before breakfast. Then we’ll be raft building and racing and out on the wilderness orienteering that we call ‘search to survive’ before sitting down at four o’clock for tea and cake, before the pupils leave for survival island. A good forecast again for tomorrow.