Abersoch, the Tudwals and a rant..

A trip with my friend Ian setting off from Machroes at the far end of Abersoch beach to Porth Ceiriad, a short top of around 7 miles. Ian has purchased a 'Formby Finger' Greenland paddle from me and was keen to try it out on the sea, after an initial demo on the River Dee.

We paddled over to the Tudwals, 2 small rocky islands 1km offshore, and quickly went round them, quite a few birds still nesting on the ledges, and young cormorants practising their diving skills all around us. A few seals spotted, and unfortunately one dead pup floating in the water.

We decided to go straight across and round the headland at Trwyn yr Wylfa and have lunch at Porth Ceiriad, and do some rock hopping on the way back. The fine weather had brought plenty of people to the beach; unfortunately some of them also decided to bring their speedboats and jetskis and at the same time leave the part of their brain that controls sensibility at home.

It really does beggar belief how unobservant some people are when behind the wheel of a fast boat, we had to wave our paddles several times at boats that threatened to collide with us, and we constantly saw adults and children without lifejackets.

After a quick lunch and pitstop at Porth Ceiriad we followed the coast back round to Machroes, sticking our noses into some of the caves, and taking in the geology. We were going against the ebb, but it was easy paddling.

We both agreed it would be a a far better midweek trip and best done at the crack of dawn.

The Formby Finger..building a Greenland paddle

A few days ago with some time to spare I decided to build a Greenland style kayak paddle.

The main reason being that the low angle paddling style might alleviate some of my back and shoulder problems.

I bought the Western Red Cedar from the same supplier as usual, a bit shocked at how much timber has gone up in price, but 2 x 2.44m lengths of 140 x 25mm would be enough to build 2 paddles.

As the working thickness I needed was 40mm I had to cut the boards into strips and used West System Epoxy to join them together to produce a 100 x 40mm blank.

I used Chuck Holst's GP design, which is a very clear and concise instruction manual to building a paddle and I found it easy to follow after converting to metric. I won't go into discussion of paddle length, technique etc.. it's all in Chuck's article.

After the first cuts to remove surplus timber to form the blades, some careful marking for the loom and blade tips. The paddle is 12mm thick at the tips.

All cut out on a bandsaw, then a couple of hours whittling in the garden...

A remarkable amount of wood shavings resulted from extensive work with a block plane and a few sharp knives, great for lighting the bbq later on..

Blade tips after sanding.

Main tools used [no bandsaw in garden]

And finally a lovely smooth paddle.

After couple of coats of Danish Oil to seal it I joined some friends in Wales for a trip on the Menai Strait to try it out. Very different from a Euro paddle; at first the low angle style of paddling felt very strange, but after 10 mins it started to feel quite natural, and I didn't notice the lack of feather compared to my usual Lendal carbon fibre paddle. It has a 'soft' feel and after going into the wind and tide for 6 miles I felt like I could have kept going all day, and my friends gave it a favourable review too.

Only minus point is that the high front of the Rockpool Alaw's cockpit doesn't allow a true Greenland paddling style.

Many thanks to my friend Ray McCarthy, builder of the 'Wirral Wand' for his advice and support. I hope the 'Formby Finger' meets his expectations.