Old Head with Jon Hynes
July 7th, Day 23,
An unreal day! Met up with Jon Hynes in the morning and paddled from Oysterhaven around the Old Head of Kinsale and now entering the wild Atlantic way! The first bit of it and boy was it lively around the head. We set off and made our way along the coast a bit to be a bit more sheltered from the wind. Had a nice stop for a sandwich and tea at a little cove just before the head, then made our way towards going up and around. The tide was too low to shoot through the tunnel of old head but what we did was better. We came up and around towards the lighthouse and Jon, this being his backyard, said it would be a bit spicy and it certainly was. Pretty wild chop with short periods so being launched up and slapped back down in the swell and the wind up a bit. We carried on with that for about a quarter of a mile maybe, and Jon being faster, would be ahead for a while which was good because it gave me a line to follow and today was a great test for my competence and confidence as a solo paddler. If he wasn’t there, I would be a bit nervous alright and would just be looking to get through it but him being there meant I could really have fun in the swell and be launched around and bracing and paddling well. Once we got out of the bigger part we paddled side on together for the rest and laughed at the velocity of that section. Really fun stuff. We then paddled down and turned to surf into Garylucas beach and I had a sick surf all the way to the beach from maybe 20 meters out. Such a cool end to the day, I was totally chuffed with the whole day. Just great and what more to do it with the guy that inspired me early on to do this. Such a cool thing to watch someone do something so insane and then paddle along side them as I’m doing the very same thing. Full circle.
We sorted our gear back at his house and had a hearty dinner and ended at the pub with a couple pints of Murphy’s.
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