The final day

The final evening was spent aboard Erith Yacht club's clubship. We are very grateful for their hospitality and for giving us a dry night to rest. The night under the bushes in Southend nearly finished us off!

As most of my family expected, Colin and I woke up a little confused about what the time should be. We hit the Thames against the ebbing tide and crept up river towards the finish. Colin continually slowing me down as he feared we would arrive too early. At about midday something very strange happened; Colin gained an hour and promptly picked up the pace to ensure we weren't late! 2 hours of hard slog and we passed under Tower Bridge where hundreds of people were craning to watch us over the side. There was no noise... Where was my mother? It quickly dawned on us that these people were just tourists and there was no reception party. It was only 1 o'clock and we were expected at 2! Well done Colin. After hiding behind some Thames barges for 20 mins we headed off for a second finish at 2o'clock and to the roar of the crowd. It has been a fantastic journey of ups and downs (in more than one sense) and we have raised approx 2,500 pounds for Help for Heroes. Thank you for your support. Sam and Colin

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End in Sight

A good days paddle from Southend pier to Erith sailing club. 45km but the strong SW winds made a couple of stretches pretty testing for Sam especially. We saw about 6 seals on Blythe Sands who came out to investigate what we were doing. It broke the monotony for a few minutes. We've just finished final planning for the last stretch; the tide times aren't brilliant as we will be fighting the current for the first couple of hours in the morning. Things get better as midday approaches and we aim to be at Tower Bridge at approximately 1430hrs (GMT). It has been an excellent adventure but the living rough for 10 days is enough for anyone. We are looking forward to a well-earned rest and a proper bed to sleep in. Colin has already started to think about his next trip on the West coast of France. Thank you for your continued support; we appreciate it very much.
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It's Friday Night in Southend

The pier at Southend is 1.3miles out into the sea. At low tide the water recedes to almost the end. With our experience of moving these 90kg of boat and equipment across beaches we decided we'd chance our arm and land at the end of the pier. The RNLI ladies at the shop were very inquisitive and helpful in pointing us towards the puer office. The pier officials were already at the railings pointing at the kayaks. Had we blown it? After a little negotiation the kayaks were safely locked up at the end of the pier and we were riding the pier train to the shore. Looking like a couple of tramps on shore leave we made our way up the high street looking for a laundrette. We haven't found one yet. We also still don't know where we are going to sleep as the beach on Friday night is full of revellers; we might not be able to blend in. Tomorrow is 40km upto the final night under the stars at Erith before we finish on Sunday. We leave at 1030hrs if snyone wants to join us tomorrow. If you are planning to meet us at Tower Bridge please can you let me know on sam59r@gmail.com as I need to let the police know how many officers they need on duty to manage the crowd. ;-)
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The generosity of the British public

It never ceases to amaze me how the British public support charitable causes. This morning the Sea View Cafe, apart from providing a 1st class breakfast, told all there customers what we were doing and we left with 15 pounds for H4H! Debbie the chef offered to make us some sandwiches but we felt they had done more than enough for us. We made it to red sands towers just as the flooding tide picked up in the estuary. This made the final 27km to Southend a little easier. Some bloody big ships out there too. As we approached Southend, Colin's true colours came out; just have a look at how he has adjusted the angle of his cap to become more 'local'. Lol
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New plan

We've relocated to the Isle of Sheppey and will paddle out on the Swale out into the Estuary and hope to finish at Herne Bay to allow us to strike out to Red Sands and onto Southend tomorrow. Oving the boats by hand is a lot harder than paddling them! See you at Tower Bridge.
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Weather is changeable to say the least!

After a dry night on Shakespeare Beach in Dover we awoke at 0600hrs this morning to find windy conditions from the south driving a significant swell. We prepared for the water and launched on time at 0700hrs and a call to the coastguard for an update on the inshore weather forecast confirmed our initial fears. Wind from the south/SE 4/5 gusting 6 at times. Sea moderate to rough at times. Moderate to a sea kayak is rough! We headed out around Dover's South breakwater but could barely maintain 6km/h, the speed needed to get 30km past North Foreland by the turn of the tide. From Dover there are no places to get out on the coast until Deal which when added to the conditions made it too dangerous. Please don't give up on us or the cause we are supporting; we certainly are not. We will now try the North Kent coast and try again this afternoon. We still aim to paddle under Tower Bridge on Sunday even if we have to put in at Wapping an hour before! S+C
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On English Soil

The pick-up went to plan this morning and Colin and I have arrived in UK courtsey of Norfolkline Ferries - thank you Andy Kelly and Louise Graham for your patience! We struck out from Dover Harbour E entrance and have found a place high on the pebble beach to lay up. Tomorrow morning we leave at 0700hrs hoping to clear South Foreland and arrive at Deal by 10am. At 11am we will continue around North Foreland with an ambitious target of reaching Herne Bay by nightfall. This will place us well for a big one across to Southend the following day. The sea is quite lumpy outside the harbour wall and should be interesting in the twighlight tomorrow morning. It's raining now and looks to continue tonight so will prob be the same when we get on the water. Happy days.
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Waiting to be Teleported

We are carrying minor repairs to kit and equipment which have been beasted over the last 5 days. It also gives us an opportunity to adjust the stowage of kit in the boat now we have had an opportunity to see what we actually need on a daily basis and what can be packed deep in the hull. Colin has just come back from the sea with a bag full of water to do some clothes washing. Whilst it feels nice not beibg sat in a boat for once it is also very frustrating not being able to make progress. As predicted the wind has maintained its force 4/5 but has swung again to blow from the SE which is offshore meaning we'd struggle to keep our course close to shore. Transport will pick us up tomorrow morning at 8am and we'll make our way to Calais to get over to Dover. Paddling will resume, weather permitting, on Thursday morning from Dover. The pictures are current sleeping arrangements and the sunrise at 0700hrs this morning. Sam + Colin
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Beaten but not staying down

The wind and effect on the sea has forced us to take an escape option from a planned crossing this morning. The bay is fed and feeds three huge sluice channels which are responsible for maintaining the water levels in the zeeland part of Holland. The seas were difficult to cross as waves seemed to come from all directions and the the wind wqas driving up the swell against us. It simply wasn't worth the risk to go on so we aborted. The weather forecast for tomorrow is worse still meaning the crossing will still not be possible. We have made a decision to try and claw back some lost ground. We will forego this stretch of Holland and save it for another time. Our plan is to get a vehicle and move to Calais on Wednesday. We still aim to paddle from Dover on Thu morning and continue as we had planned around the N Kent coast and into the Thames estuary to finish on Sunday. We tried hitch-hiking today but only the police stopped to tell us we weren't allowed adverts at the side of the road! We are still roughing it and I'm looking forward to sleeping next to my boat in a field by the road. With the boats weighing in at 90kgs moving by foot isn't really feasible. It was murder getting off the beach today and we were grateful for the help from the locals. Unless we source a lift tomorrow, we are stuck by the road on the island of Schoewen and will rest and service equipment tomorrow. We are both in good spirits and enjoying the company. we'll post agin tomorrow. Thank you for your continued support we really appreciate it. S+C
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The long move to the water. You can just see colin the centre of the picture! Sam
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The chinstrapper

It all started with a portage of about 800m to get the 180kg of boats and equipment from the river to the sea which inevitably meant we were late on the water. A combination of sleep deprivation, constant headwind and aching body have made today an absolute epic. Sickeningly Colin is taking it in his stride! I have rarely felt quite as hopeless as I did today halfway through an 11km open water crossing. The constant pitching and rolling made me feel quite queezy and light headed and sapped what was left of my morale. Tonight I need a good night's sleep and a good stretch off because the weather forecast is for strengthening winds from the SW up to Force 4. They will be in our face all day and will impede our progress so we'll be on the water at 0900hrs. On the plus side we have been followed by some seals today as they swam around us trying to fathom what we were doing. Raised morale about a millimetre. S+C
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The chinstrapper

It all started with a portage of about 800m to get the 180kg of boats and equipment from the river to the sea which inevitably meant we were late on the water. A combination of sleep deprivation, constant headwind and aching body have made today an absolute epic. Sickeningly Colin is taking it in his stride! I have rarely felt quite as hopeless as I did today halfway through an 11km open water crossing. The constant pitching and rolling made me feel quite queezy and light headed and sapped what was left of my morale. Tonight I need a good night's sleep and a good stretch off because the weather forecast is for strengthening winds from the SW up to Force 4. They will be in our face all day and will impede our progress so we'll be on the water at 0900hrs. On the plus side we have been followed by some seals today as they swam around us trying to fathom what we were doing. Raised morale about a millimetre. S+C
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Today

We started very early so no-one got upset at the Marina development and found a local picnic spot on the bank to scran up for breakfast/brunch. Same as yesterday; sausage and beans and oxtail soup. When we rejoined the river a sailing race had started all around us and the boats weren't small as can be seen on the pic. We stayed in the middle as boat after boat passed us waving but creating such a wash it was difficult to control the kayaks. A one point two huge boats came very close on either side making for very confused water around us; they probably thought it was very funny! The wind is still with us and again conditions were very challenging across the open stretches of water. We have now arrived at the sea and have an early start at 6.48am to catch the tides right. We didin't sleep very well last night due to water, rain and little scurry things in the bushes. Bed early tonight to prepare for the hardest parts yet to come. The wind has been NNE so we thought tracking the coast it might help but sod's law it will veer round to SSW for the morning! At least it will drop to 8mph for a couple of days. Some big open crossings coming up - something to look forward to?!? I'll let you know tomorrow night. S+C
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Yesterday!

First of all sorry I could not blog yesterday but we had a few issues that went on into the night! The weather yesterday was very changeable with winds Force 4 gusting 5 from the NNE which meant they were in our face or on the fwd right quarter deck for most of the day. It was unpleasant. We pressed on later than we we planned to make the distance and found a nice inlet and beach to camp. Once set up we noticed the marsh behind the beach was turning into a lake and the beach was receding! It was a non-tidal area but with so much rain flowing down river and the sluice gates closed the water started to rise. We had to bug out and had a forced night paddle of 5km to shelter still with the squalls battering the boats. Eventually we found a private marina with lovely houses surrounding. We crept in like some night raiders and made camp under a bush as can be seen in the picture. Through the night colin's nearly floated off in his bv bag as the waters rose further and although I was tucked up under the hedge there were rats active all around me but nothing a quick meow and a rustle of the sleeping bag couldn't sort out. So an adventurous day to say the least. We left as silently as we arrived and made for a breakfast stop further down the river. S+C
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All is well!

Sorry for not posting to blog last night but we had some issues that meant a 5km night paddle! You'll have to wait for thefull story but it involves lots of water, a disappearing beach and rats up close and personal. I'll update you all later. Sam and Colin.
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End of Day 1

A chilly start to the journey but Colin and I have made good progress today with 60km notched up already. It's been a bit surreal too; first we are waved off by 3 tramps living under Nijmegen Bridge then we are flagged down by 2 girls jumping up and down on the beach. It turns out they were local newspaper reporters! They happened to see us paddling by from their office and were dispatched to drive down river to intercept us and find out what we were doing and more importantly why! Some pictures and a news story later we were on our way again. The less experienced member of our group, no names please, learnt two valuable lessons today:
1. If one is going to wear a dry suit then it is prob a good idea to do the large zip up.
2. When taking a leak on a beach ensure the boat is tied to something to save it getting washed away as the large barge passes.
We came off the water as the sun was setting. I'm bushed and ready to get my head down now. Tomorrow will be another long one to take us just shy of the Scheldt Estuary.
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We are away!
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Little faces don't lie

We are finally on our way to Nijmegen and it was difficult seeing the expressive emotions on the children's faces. - think Colin and I will both miss their questions about why we were packing this and that. "Don't worry about me" as Toby quite often tells me himself. We would also like to say bonjour to Madame Montoir's class at College Jean Neyman in St Nazaire who are following our progress to help with the English lessons. We'll be back with news of our first day later. Sam and Colin
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Minus 3 Celsius in the morning!

Well time has come around and we are packed and ready to get underway. Tabitha prepared a carbo rich supper this evening and we leave home at 0800hrs tomorrow. The boats are very heavy and probably close to 85kg each so will be sitting a bit lower in the water but will aid secondary stability.
Thank you for all the support we have received up to now and please continue to plug for our cause as we try and reach our fundraising target of £5,000. We are currently at 36%. As we have always said, anyone is welcome to join us for any stretch of this adventure providing you can handle a sea kayak and don't mind paddling with two smelly men. The next post will be from the blackberry so i hope it all works okay.
Thanks again,

Sam & Colin

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An interesting day of heavy rain, thunder and sunny spells. The River Maas at Roermond was unusually deserted but for a few tourist cruisers. Strong headwind on several sections called for a low paddle technique and in some cases to practice ferrygliding to stay on heading. A nice day though. Colin will arrive here on Tue to carry out pre-trip checks before we start on Thursday at Nijmegen. I would like to publicly thank him for all the work he has done behind the scenes to get this trip on an even keel. He is a stalwart and, if I'm honest, I couldn't have planned it without his contribution so thank you Colin.
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Obstacles Can Be Overcome

Unfortunately, with only 8 days until we cast off from Nijmegen, we still have not heard back from the French Maritime Authorities. Without their express permission to navigate out to 12 miles to reach international waters we will be unable to cross the Channel in kayaks. Colin and I have discussed the possibilities and are contingency planning for Channel/No Channel options. We mustn't lose sight of the overall objective which is to reach the Tower of London not to cross the Channel, although it would be nice.
If we are unable to cross at Calais we will plan an equally demanding open water crosssing from Margate on the Nort Kent coast out to the Maunsell Forts at Redsands in the middle of the Thames Estuary and then finishing at Southend-on-Sea in Essex. The distance will be greater; the beaurocracy less! If anyone thinks this is a cop out then you are welcome to join us for this particular section ;)
Apart from that planning is going well and the weather is looking encouraging too. Roll on a week tomorrow! yikes!
Sam

Out paddling on the River Ruhr this evening to try and break the monotony of my normal lake. Nice flow of about 3 kmh to battle against for the first 30 mins until I hit a rapid section which was no place for a sea kayak. I duly turned around and enjoyed speeds of up to 13.5 kmh until I passed my entry point and hit this weir 400m on! Needless to say I sacked training for today and went back to nursing my hangover from last nights excellent Oktoberfest! On the rower for an hour in the morning!
Sam
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Night-Time Paddling

I am losing about 5mins of daylight a week which means that the last 20mins of tonights paddle were in the dark. I took this picture as twighlight crept over Hariksee near Dusseldorf in Germany. With only 2 weeks to go until push off, I'm beginning to wish I lived closer to the sea! Colin is in the UK doing some final recces and training paddles on some of the water we will cover later in the month.

Please, if you live close to the route around the north-Kent coast or Thames Estuary you are more than welcome to join us for a leg or two. On 25 October, we are hoping that as many boats as possible can join us in the water at Tower Bridge. It would be a great way to finish.

Sam

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Another pic from Dunkerque
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A great day on the water! Colin and I met for the first time near Dunkerque. The weather was fantastic as was the company. The boats performed very well and we are both very much looking forward to the event. This update was sent using the TKS blackberry so another pre-check complete. Check out our route on the SPOT tracker page. There was some very strange hot water coming out of the power station; almost the length of the beach was like paddling in a toddlers bath! must be nice in the winter though.

Sam
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Weather Fri 25.09.2009

A centre of high pressure on the North West coast of France is moving East, dry fine weather continues.
At Dunkerque, cloudy in the morning becoming Sunny in the Afternoon. Light Northerly winds 10k

Synoptic chart from
European Centre for medium range weather forecasts ECMWF.


http://www.ecmwf.int/products/forecasts/d/charts/medium/deterministic/msl_uv850_z500

Too much sunshine !!

After some pretty dismal weather over the last few days I am greeted with a beautiful sunny morning to knock out my 50 k paddle. Sounds wonderful !! but the reality is it places big demands on the bodies cooling system. Even picking the clothes to wear needs careful thought, fortunately the sea temperature is relatively high after the summer, but still immersion is a problem that needs to be guarded against.

The result is a "sweaty" paddle, even in just a t shirt when paddling at a 'purposeful' rate.

I am considerably advantaged compared with Sam, I have access to the Sea and a reasonable stretch of river. A problem with training can be getting bored with repetitive loops. Today I decided to have a bash down the coast and return, although the coast is local and I have paddled every kilometer several times, I have only paddled this length of coast once before so today was an interesting paddle for me, running past the lighthouse Grand Charpentier on the way out and returning closer to the coast passing some rocky reefs outside the bay of La Baule.

No SPOT tracker on this trip but I have loaded the GPS track onto a digital chart, the major difference is the SPOT tracker trace can be viewed live. ( I now know how to post a picture here !)

Some statistics: Time 5Hrs 30 , distance 50.4 Km Average speed 9Km/hr

I am now preparing for a trip back to UK, my next paddle is Friday when I meet Sam, we'll be taking a run out from Dunkerque.

Again I see our donations rising .... great stuff ! Many thanks to all our sponsors

Colin

27 Days Until Cast Off!

My children have very kindly donated their colds to me and i have started to go down with man-flu today! Only men will know what I'm going through. That said I still managed to get out for another 10km paddle this evening and although the first 30mins were pretty unpleasant i entered the 'zone' and finished in a reasonable 1 hr 20mins.
I pick up my loaned NDK kayak this weekend (thank you Nigel, Axel and Nico) so should be able to cover a little more distance over the short sessions i complete daily. I'll be in Arnhem this weekend celebrating 65years since Operation MARKET GARDEN and paying my respects to the old boys who make the pilgrimage every year. There will be 1,000 paras jumping in at the historical DZs across the region so it should be quite spectacular. Troops from Holland, UK, USA, Poland and for the first time, Germany will all jump together. Rumoured to be the biggest they have ever hosted. Should be back in the water in a new boat on Sunday night.

Sam

Thank you Jo Clark and Sarah B!

A very generous donation of £1,000- has been made by Jo Clark and Sarah B. This takes our target widget to 29% of our goal.
Thank you very much to all who have contributed to date, only 29 days until we can repay you in effort!

Moving forwards

I've been quite preoccupied making an application to the French maritime authorities requesting permission to move through French territorial waters, for the Channel crossing.

Of course, to accompany the application a 'passage plan' was required detailing dates and timings and route. So to give a flavour of some of the work involved I'll explain a little of the planning process.

First of all a date needs to be set, in our case the 21st October, relatively easy to work out, we need to be at Tower Bridge on 25th October. The crossing needs coordination with the tidal currents which will be at their fastest on this date with the 'spring' tides, in fact up to 3 Knots.

To take advantage of these currents, not only for the crossing but also considering the journey on the 'other side' means a departure time of 12.40 . The tidals streams atlas provides all the information concerning the currents on an hourly basis, this needs to be applied to the kayaks progress along the route, then corrections made to ensure the Kayaks get to the destination. The tidal streams vary in speed as the tide rises and falls, and each hourly rate will be referenced to the tide times at Dover.

We also will be crossing one of the busiest shipping routes in the world, Two shipping lanes are defined with a separation zone between them. The law has strict requirements, you must sail at 90° when crossing them. So this requirement is built into the route. Whilst the shortest distance is from Calais to Dover, we would be in competition with three major Car Ferry companies ! So the route is Cap Gris Nez to Folkstone.

Big ships now have to transmit a radio identification signal, to give you all an appreciation of the number of Ships, take a look at this website which maps the 'radio' data onto google maps
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/

Today I took the spot tracker out on the river while training, and again no problems with the signal, and the tracking markers can be seen on the 'SPOT' page of the website

A long post today, (but not as long as the emails Sam gets from me, so spare a thought for Sam ! )

Will work a new page into the Website showing route details .......... soon

Thankyou for all your donations Colin

Preparations Continue

Some of you may be surprised to hear that Colin and I have never actually met. Our first meeting is scheduled for the end of this month in N France. Will we get on? 10 days together without a break might be quite a test in itself forgetting the distance we have chosen to kayak. It actually doesn't matter; it's not about us; it's about the committment we have made to raise as much money as possible to help the soldiers returning from operations less able than when they deployed.
When one undertakes to complete a challenge like this, it is difficult to comprehend the amount of detail that needs to go into the planning. Sponsorship, equipment, routes, contingency options, accommodation, transport, permissions, the list goes on and on and will continue to need adapting to the situation we find ourselves in day to day. We have just over 30 days until we begin this journey and there are still many things that need tying up. We are holding out that the French Authorities will allow us passage from Calais as historically very few attempts have originated on the French side of the Channel.
Next week I start raising local sponsorship using the good old sponsor form and posters showing what we aim to achieve. If you are reading this and haven't yet contributed to our just-giving page then I would urge you to add your slice to our target of £5,000.

Sam

Training in earnest in NW Germany

Well done to Colin on the website development; I think it looks very good.
For me, progressive and regular training will be key to building up stamina for this event. Unfortunately the lake where I train is only 1km long therefore 5 laps = 10km. I try to finish with either a couple of eskimo rolls on either side or if i'm really lucky a self rescue (more likely!) I'm off to the coast in a couple of weeks to practice with surf and beaching drills.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank our sponsors for their kind concessions and donations to our cause. Only 35 days until we cast off for London!
Sam

Training

I was on the River 7am, the river level has dropped by more than a meter. The low water level is bad news, in places there is only 30 cms of water across the entire width of river. This creates lots of drag on the boat, slowing me down to barely 4km per hour. However in deeper places with the wind behind I was cruising along at a nice 9km hour. The end result .. 40 km in 5 hours so pleased with the mornings paddle.
Colin

Our first post, its now 22:35 I've just done some more work on the website. Now I have my kit ready for the morning, I will be up at dawn, 5 mins for breakfast then off for a 20 min drive to the River Mayenne ... I can do 14 Km circuits between weirs !

I need a good 5 hour paddle, but on the river this will be boring ! I'll take the GPS to monitor speed, its a really good training tool. I need min of 7 Km/hr average (there's no current here to assist !)

Thursday I'll repeat, but try and set the SPOT tracker up

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