Joanne

By Leigh Murray Comment Closed
Name?Joanne Durnan (17)  How long have you been a club member?I have been a member since October 2021 Where do you stay?Clydebank  What made you start kayaking?I started kayaking very briefly with the sea cadets and really enjoyed it leading me to join the club  What do you enjoy about the sport?I love the challenge of kayaking and learning new skills. I also love being on the water and so kayaking is an ideal sport for me. Is it different to what you expected?It's very different. When I joined I honestly thought you could only paddle in one type of boat and only in straight lines! Now I know there's different types and loads of different skills to learn  Where all have you been kayaking?I've been kayaking on Loch Lomond, the Clyde and the canal.  What's been your favorite trip so far and why?The Inchcailloch trip - it was beautiful weather and we had a BBQ when we got there. It was also a...
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The Mighty Teith – June 17th 2017

By Leigh Murray Comment Closed
On a calm overcast morning, 4 of us set off from Miller St all kitted up – Leigh (our trip leader), Marcus, Clive and myself. We met up with Graham Roy at Callander car park with his open boat. After leaving some cars at the Torrie lay-by some miles downriver, Leigh gave us an excellent pre-trip brief of the day ahead of us, safety checks, signals, etc. and we all showed off our individual kayak experience (or lack of). It was a busy car park. It looked like we were sharing the river Teith with a big group of kayakers from the Stirling Kayak Club. To get us warmed up we went upriver a bit to practice ferry gliding and breaking in and out of the current, which allowed the Stirling group to go on ahead. Leigh went to the front of the group to show us the correct lines, with Graham bringing up the rear in...
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Day 4 – The Search for Wind – Loch Eck, March 2017

By Leigh Murray Comment Closed
The last day of Graham’s killer canoeing sessions and he couldn’t have booked a better day, if he had a hotline to the big man himself! The sun was splitting the skies, predictions of 18°, and apparently no wind. So I cast off my old faithful dry-suit and didn’t bother bringing my pop-up sail. I was totally up for a nice leisurely paddle on Loch Eck and shades were at the ready. The scenery didn’t fail, it was picture perfect as we were kitting out our Open Boats. Having passed around the 5L bottle of screen wash Graham R. kindly helped me carve my very own bailer. Graham S then declared we were going to get wet – great, the one day I didn’t bring my dry suit! Fortunately you can always count on Sandy to save the day, he only had a spare dry-suit. On the water we did a warm-up. Stupidly I thought it was genuinely “warm-up” and got caught out...
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