a quick punt on the lough

It’s getting near the end of the year and Scotty and I had holidays to spare.  We booked Monday off work with the intention of going for a couple of hours paddling in the morning.  Scotty prefers the challenge of whitewater; I have much less experience than he does, and I prefer expeditions.

Monday morning dawned, a bright clear frosty winter morning, so we decided on Lough Neagh.  I dropped the kids off to school wearing full wetsuit – ignoring the stares from the other parents! and drove on down to Antrim Lough Shore Park.  Scotty arrived a few minutes after 9am with two of the general purpose kayaks we repaired for the education board.

Once we got on the water with the spraydecks on (which took forever on the borrowed boats) we paddled out into Antrim Bay.  The bay has a reputation for being the roughest section of Lough Neagh, but today it was completely still.  The surface of the water was like glass, and apart from the barge clearing the silt from the mouth of the sixmilewater, there was complete silence.

We headed out towards the torpedo launch platform, the morning sun behind us adding a golden glow to the winter colours along the shoreline.  The torpedo platform, which is usually heaving with terns and gulls in the summer time was deserted and silent, almost eerie as we approached.  We paddled on in no hurry, glorying in the peace, admiring the perfect reflections in the water, Scotty practising a variety of strokes, and waiting patiently for me as I tried to get the hang of that most difficult of skills, ‘paddling in a straight line’.

As we approached Shane’s Castle, a hint of a breeze sprang up, a little flurry of movement on the surface of the water.  A gentle ripple. 

Heading back towards the carpark, the sky turned grey, the wind blowing north up the length of the lough lifting the previously still water into foot-high waves which crashed over the bow of the kayak as I continued my struggle to paddle in a straight line with the added difficulty of the kayak’s natural tendency to weather-vane, turning into the wind and away from the direction of the river mouth.  Zig-zagging along the shore to counter the wind, rolling with the waves, it was a lumpy ride; not so bad or unpredictable that we were at any risk of capsizing, but hairy enough to keep me on full alert. 
 
Arriving at the mouth of the river there was the added excitement of the waves rushing up the narrow channel.  We were able to surf quite far up the river, so we continued round the bend and up the sixmilewater to the castle bridge and practised ferry glides in the gentle current.

The whole journey only took three hours, and we were never more than half a mile from civilisation, but our waterways have been totally abandoned in the modern march of urbanisation, so as soon as you leave the shoreline you plunge into a different world; an unpredictable wilderness right on our doorstep.