Your Kayak Is Floating Away

We’d done a big shop so the kayak was loaded up with food for a week or more, the new rudder blade had been fitted so we were ready to go. 

Time for a coffee and a quick catch up with the rest of world while we still had phone reception. We left the kayak on the beach next to the boat ramp  right in the middle of Mallaig. The tide was ebbing, the harbour waters were mill pond calm and there was hardly a breeze. 

We wandered literally just across the road for a coffee. While at the cafe I popped across the road to check the kayak and lift it down the beach a metre or two so the ebbing tide didn’t leave it high and dry. 

Around the corner we ordered a fish supper (fish and chips) for Lynne and a haggis supper for me. It took a few minutes then we wandered back to some benches on the waterfront overlooking the beach and our kayak to eat our lunch.

We were still in our dry suits so I suppose recognisable as kayakers, as we approached the waterfront some bystanders looked at us with concern and said “Your kayak is floating away”

How? What? That’s not possible!

It just cannot have floated away of its own accord. Being so heavily laden, plus the ebbing tide it would have needed quite a shove to get afloat.

Another bystander said “A kid pushed it off”. 

At first I thought I would be able to reach it by climbing down a ladder on the wharf side but by the time I ran around to the top of the ladder it had drifted just out of reach. A zephyr of a breeze was drifting it imperceptibly across the opposite side of the little bay.  

I ran around to the other side, a working shipyard, ducked under a fishing boat on their ramp only to find it still out of reach. It was now drifting, very slowly, out into the harbour.

It was time to get wet! I eased myself off the ramp into chest deep water and walked towards the kayak but was soon swimming. I grabbed it, swum it back to where it should be and pulled it ashore. 

Luckily my haggis supper was still hot. 

Finished with lunch, we launched and started paddling away from the beach. 

A little kid, maybe 8-9years old appeared on the shipyard ramp. 

“It wae me oo put ya boot ooot”

Ya little wee bastard.