George's blog

Stand up paddle boarding  – a new venture of mine. For those of you unfamiliar with this sport, see the photo below.

I suppose for a man living on the canal this is the equivalent of a bicycle. Much like a bicycle, I have learned that maintaining stability is significantly easier when in motion. I imagine this is due to the force of the current pushing against the fins on both sides and thus keeping them vertical (I’m a physicist). As I glide up and down the canal, passersby will often make conversation and in particular, ask how I maintain balance. I reply by saying “It is much like a bike and you need to keep speed in order to avoid falling sideways”. This is my polite way of saying that I have no intention of stopping and talking with them. Thus far, this has seldom worked and what often follows is an awkward wobble as their unwelcome pleasantries bring me to a disappointing halt. At times like this, I miss London. People in the countryside really like talking to each other. It’s horrific.

My first outing was on a Tuesday. The weather was beautiful, following a very windy day before. So windy in fact that one gust had blown an outdoor cushion away. This fashioned a clear starting mission: cushion retrieval. With an under-inflated board and a poorly assembled paddle, I made way over to the site of peril and retrieved the lost furnishing. It was a wobbly manoeuvre, but I did it. Following this mini-venture, I learned that the pressure gauge on the pump was not just for decoration and was to be taken very seriously. The defect in the paddle, on the other hand, was to be blamed on Amazon and their inability to tighten screws properly. Fortunately, as a gentleman in his late 20s, I own a screwdriver now, so I could sort this out. The excitement of the cushion rescue has led me to realise that, equipped with my board and the big magnet on a string I had purchased in September, I am ready to retrieve an assortment of artefacts I have lost to the canal, from lanterns to plant pots, submerged from Uxbridge to Wendover.

So now that the board is functioning, let’s go over the kit. I wear swimming shorts because I’m still fundamentally very frightened of falling in. If it’s cold, I’ll wear a light T-shirt, but the temperature has been in the low 20s recently, which in the UK is suncream weather and I have hence been whizzing along with my nipples out. Then we come to the slippers. Most paddle boarders will stand bare foot, but given the state and age of UK canals, I really don’t want my feet to discover what lies beneath the dark algae-covered surface of the water. As a vegetarian, I have a real ick about my feet touching shopping trolleys which have had meat in them and when the light hits the water right on a still day, one can observe that there’s a few of these kicking about. My old slippers are the only footwear I don’t mind getting wet. That being said though, the frequent splashes of canal water in conjunction with a shortage of time to dry in-between has somewhat coerced them into a stinky state. What I really need is a pair of crocs. This means that after years of insulting my brother’s choice to wear them, I may soon find myself standing corrected. But not standing corrected on the ground. Standing corrected on a paddle board. I’ll therefore maintain some margin of superiority.

On my third or fourth trip out on the board, I endured a challenge I knew inevitable: the appearance of an oncoming boat. I identify more as a boater than as a paddle boarder, and as a boater I have encountered many paddle boarders. This made it easy to know what to do. I needed to move aside to let the boat past. This is exactly what I was planning. However, the boat moved first. This occasionally happens when I’m out on a run too and a cyclist moves aside for me. Obviously, the person moving slower should move out of the way. It’s less effort for them to wait. I step aside on my runs allowing a cyclist to whizz by. When they step aside, I’m bestowed with the uncomfortable endeavour of picking up my pace and skedaddling  past them as they impatiently wait for me to move as quickly as my frantic legs will allow. It’s on them. Similarly, when this boat decided to pull aside 500 meters ahead of me, they were left with an awkward interlude as I struggled to venture past at more than 4km per hour. Two vessels travelling towards each other at this speed do not need to make way this early.

On my current pound, however, boat passings are infrequent. I have a half mile stretch to explore and I have been enjoying doing so in the sunshine. The lack of canal traffic means the water is clear and I can inspect what lies beneath the surface. It’s not shopping trolleys here. Mostly fish and an unholy number of tadpoles. I have also learned that I can simply sit, as opposed to exerting my core muscles by standing. Sitting is a lesser work out, but gives me the chance to check out what’s going on near the surface of the water. This has mostly been the sudden appearance of ducklings, but on Wednesday, I had the joy of coming across a terrapin, soaking up some sunshine whilst perched on a branch. Terrapins are an invasive species in the UK and illegal to buy and sell. It is also unlikely that they will ever be able to breed in our cooler climates, so this fella must be fairly old. With a high frequency of releases in the 80s and an average life expectancy of up to 40 years, I’m counting this as a rare find, with the opportunity to meet these lads coming to an end soon.