Return to cold, grey northern waters.

The staff of seakayakphoto.com have now all returned to their winter waters on the Clyde. Sunday's forecast was pretty variable. XC weather was showing SE 4-5 backing NE 3-4, the BBC was showing NE 3 with full sun, Theyr was for NE 3-4 and the met office inshore was for SE 5-6 backing NE 4-5. We decided to do the Seafield to Maidens run (NE to SW) with a car shuttle return. None of the forecasts had got it fully right and Jennifer, Mike, Phil and I set off on a cold overcast day from Seafield....

...towards the Heads of Ayr...

 ...with a light F2-3 NE wind.

Using sails we slowly caught up with Andrew and Colin who had set off ahead of us in their new Valley Etain 175s. Indeed this was Colin's first outing! His kayak looked very smart with a light grey deck and red trim though I confess I have a soft spot for Andrew's all white with red trim combination which is the same as my own Nordkapp LV. This Etain 175 was originally called the Etain LV but I am glad that that label has now been dropped as it was rather misleading. When seen next to the other kayaks on the beach, its volume  was bigger than the Nordkapp LV, not much smaller than the Quest's and considerably bigger than the Cetus MV (that looked almost miniscule alongside).

We took our first luncheon looking out towards a misty Arran from Bracken Bay, which has lost a lot of sand since the spring.