Loch Awe
September 2016
[featured-video-plus]Yeeha! 3rd time lucky. The boy did NOT get lost!
My 5th Loch Awe, and 3rd time solo, and this was my first solo without getting lost!
I started the paddle just before 9am, in a real “pea-souper”. I could only just make out the shore of the loch, so long as I was close enough to touch it. After 30 minutes, and probably only a couple of Ks, I decided to take a 30 minute break to see if the sun would burn the mist ff. It didn’t.
I then did another 20 minute paddle, and still no change. Just about ready to throw the towel in, at a little after 10:30 the sun broke through, and I was able to start my paddle proper.
Not much more to report, apart from the wind picked up an hour later and was all over the place.
When I reached the West Wing, there was very little to worry about compared to the 3 previous VERY lumpy crossings.
Including the very slow start of 3 or 4 km from a VERY slow paddle in the mist, the whole paddle took 5 hours and 43 minutes.
I think the sub-5-hour Loch Awe SUP is definitely possible!