Adventurous Experiences Blog: September 2014

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Isle of Man Sea Kayak Symposium 2014

The Isle of Man Sea Kayak Symposium International Training weekend took place over the weekend.

As much an international affair as usual, with coaches and students from Spain, Norway, USA, Sweden and the UK.

We kicked things off on Friday with a coach session in the tidal race at the Sound, which was on form on the spring ebb tide with a light westerly breeze... (Coach photo's by Nigel Dennis)

Greg and seal!

John and seal!

Kim

The main event met at Adventurous Experiences base, Ballabrooie each morning before splitting into groups and heading to the South of the Island.

With light winds and spring tides the various groups were able to take advantage of conditions and play in the races and explore the stunning Calf of Man and surrounding areas.

A pod of Risso's dolphins spotted by one group to the west of the Sound and Calf of Man.

Thanks as always to our main supporters Sea Kayaking UK, the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company and all of the coaches and paddlers who take part.

Well done to everyone that passed BCU awards over the weekend!

Looking forward to next year:

Symposium & Training weekend: 26th & 27th September 2015

5 day training course: 28th September - 2nd October 2015.

Details and accommodation options coming soon!

Monday, September 22, 2014

UK team wins IOM Adventure race with sub 3 hour time!

The Isle of Man Adventure race, organised and ran by Adventurous Experiences took place on Saturday.

This is the fifth year we've run the race and each year it has evolved to become the event it is today. The core disciplines of the race are Mountain biking and hill running, but with some key special stages that are only revealed to the competitors during the race with some clues given in the briefing the night before.

This year Sea Kayaking was due to feature in the race, but due to strong North Westerly winds on Saturday morning the course was altered and a further bike stage was introduced instead.

One of the main features of the race is that the course is unmarked, competitors are given maps of the route and required to navigate their way round whilst checking in at several proof of visit checkpoints along the way.

We had a number of teams entered from the UK including the Food & Lycra girls.

Sebastian from Argentina....

and plenty of great local teams too...

A great group of people coming together to take part in the race always it makes it a highly enjoyable experience each year for both competitors and organisers!

The race this year was a 30km journey through the spectacular manx countryside, navigating to checkpoints on foot and on bike with the interesting special stages thrown in the mix....

Pairs would stick together throughout whilst the solo's raced on alone.....

The finale - Scaling a platform then traversing a rope to another platform!

In the end the overall winners were visiting team Calder Valley Adventure racers made up of husband and wife team Phil & Jackie Scarf. Regular faces on the UK adventure racing scene this was their first visit to the island and were able to beat off local competition to navigate their way round the course completing the race in a time of 2 hours, 58 minutes and 29 seconds.

Close behind them were brothers Graham and Colin Furner (2 Fast, 2 Furners) who completed the race 3 minutes later.

In third place were the Youth Scholarship team of Tom Anderson and Katia Tastagh.

Solo competitors were also welcome with Stu Brew taking 1st prize in this category with Peter Bradley a close second, and James Bettridge third.

The special paddle award for team spirit went to team Here for the Beer, local girls Sammy and Mairi....

Full results can be found on the Manx Timing Solutions website.

The next morning some of the teams took up the offer of a short sea kayak trip off Peel in fantastic flat calm conditions whilst the Adventure club weekly training session was taking place.