I'll have a long-boat with ICE please!

Saturday 14th Febuary 2009

Early on Friday morning I suddenly thought it was a lovely sunny day, snow melting and fairly warm, what a nice day for a paddle!

I sent out a text to my Dad to see if he fancied a trip to Carrsington water to test the boats, nine with the extra weight of the new safety kit and cooking gear etc that I will carry on future trips, and Dads because he hadn't been in the bigger Micro 250 we proposed he would use for trips.

He agreed, and I picked him up at 0830 to load the boats onto the new van, what a pain that is, just can't reach the height with the boat on my own!

We set off for Carsington, and on arrival saw some patches of ice! I hope they let us on now, I hadnt expected ice it was all melting everywhere else!

We went to pay the launch fee, a reasonable £5 for a day pass, and the very concerned looking lady at the desk said she would have to check with 'health and safety' first. Answer:

Come back in an hour! The sun was shining, so helping to melt, and there was a small motor boat ice breaking also, sounded good, so we went for a coffee.

Carrsington is a relatively new reservoir opened in 1992, it serves Derby, notts and leicster. It has a very comprehensive watersports centre running courses in most sports, but as usuall the power boat fanatics get the run of the water, with kayaks and canoes only allowed within site of the centre, I understand why, but with such a lovely setting and the massive surface area it would be great to get out a little farther.

When we returned to the centre after coffee the answer was a firm NO, the ice was not melting, and was actually re-freezing, and on looking up, I realised that the sun had dissapeared behind the clouds, damn!

I gave Rother Valley Country Park a call at Sheffied, and discovered that they were also frozen, so, we got into the van and as we set off.... the powerboat course that was booked for that day was just beggining, in the kayaking area they had just cleared! Now we know!

As we descended the hill towards Matlock town, I realised that we did have 2 river boats ( the shorter Micro 230 was in the back of the van) we could actually try the River Derwent at Matlock white water course. Its not my Dads favorite place, and with the melting snow, it could be out of our skill range anyway, but we could have a look.

As we reached the road junction at Cromford, Dad suddenly realised that we were now right at the start of the Cromford canal! A plan was hatched, we'd have a look, and see if we had a right to launch.

None of the signage in the car park said anything about usage, and there didnt appear to be much depth to the water. We did notice that there was a note saying for more info go to the cafe'.

We went there to find a trio of adolescents standing around behind the counter, and when I asked the young lad 'do you have any information about canoe launching on the canal' I got 'Err NO'.

A girl behind the till was more helpfull and sent us 2 miles down the road to High Peak Junction cafe, here there was a peak park employee, who when asked the previous question just looked at us as if to say 'its freezing, why would yopu want to go on there today?'

We paid a ridiculous fee, (£1.50) and went back to the Cromford Warf to launch. The canal runs right from the carpark edge and we got an amazing range of strange looks, and comments as we got ready to launch, there was ice, but only at the end.

Getting into a kayak anywhere can have its challeges, yo can: Get in on land and 'seal launch' - not recommended in a 15' boat in a canal!

You can get in on a beach and use you knuckes to 'gorrilla' into the water - no beach!

You can put the boat into the water, and then lower yourself in trying not to fall inbetween the boat and the bankside.

The Canal proved to be interesting, still water is new to me, (and Dad) and proved to be slipperry stuff! I got Dad in 1st by kneeling on the edge stone and pinning the kayak to the side whilst he lowered himself in. Easy!

Now for the tricky part, with no-one to hold the boat to the edge which was about 10" higher than the deck of the boat I had to be quick whilst Dad 'nosed' his boat up against mine. I did it, without wet feet.

Safely on the water we set off, me in front. when I glanced back Dad was spinning and struggling with the Micro 250. When we bought it on Ebay it was listed as a 240, and upon collection I noticed it to be a 250, it is noticably bigger in all directions, but more importantly, it has no keel and instead a flat planing hull. Our micro 230 has a fairly deep keel, and tracks quite well if the paddler doesn't lean back.

I pulled into a shallow gritty beach where the bank stones had dissapeared, and swapped over boats, the question now was wether Dad could handle the 15' Venture. There where to be no sharp turns here so he would be Ok, I set off in what seemed like the shortest boat in the world, and immediatley found the thing to be very 'slipperry' on the surface of the water, every paddle stroke, had me spinning from left to right on its axis.

I swapped paddles with Dad ( my new 215m touring being far too long)

this made things a little better, but what effort required just to keep moving forwards!

Dad was away, for once I struggled to keep up, instead of being out in front.
We paddled down to the end of the line, where there are some repairs being made to the canal, I did a little ice breaking with the blue 'tug' boat. It seemed a little anti social so I turned around and we had some coffee outside the cafe.

By the time we'd reached the car back at Cromford, dad had 'seen the light' and was considering a touring boat of some sort!

So it looks like the next few weeks will be spent looking for the correct boat, and a good bargain!