Canoe? Me too!

Up bright and early (as always) this Sunday morning and if the weather holds up I will be going out on the loch in the canoe.

A wee paddle, pull in on an island somewhere, a cooked breakfast on the camping stove which breaks every government guideline about saturated fat, sugar, salt, cholesterol and red meat, maybe see some wildlife including ospreys, peregrine falcons, capercaillie (although I hear there are now fewer than ten left on the loch islands) and wallabies -maybe take some photos.

Chill out, re-energise and visit another wee world for a few hours.

Since I bought my first inflatable two-man canoe in 2008, I have taken several friends out to experience the fantastic free resource we are lucky to have here on our doorstep. The first guest paddler was Richie who after our island adventures together in 2010, bought himself an inflatable last year. Others have followed and yet more have said are going to. Richie and I were talking about it recently and we reckon maybe half a dozen folk are afloat because of my purchase four years ago.

Perhaps though my best selling job on the idea was a few weeks ago when I bumped into an old school pal. I referred to this friend in a previous blog post as we had gone on a camping holiday together when we were 16 at Iona.

I hadn’t seen him for maybe ten years and even then only briefly. It had probably been 12-15 years before that when we were in regular contact.

Having bumped into each other by chance I gave him a lift from Helensburgh to Dumbarton during which one of the topics that came up was my inflatable canoe. He must have been impressed about the idea, because having swapped email addresses, he contacted me a couple of days later to say that he had purchased a Sevylor Colorado.

And so this morning we have arranged to meet up for a paddle to put that boat through its manoeuvres. The weather looks a bit grey as I type but the forecast is dry until lunchtime – so here’s hoping.

Another of my tasks this weekend has been to edit Scottish Round Up which is the weekly guide to the Scottish blogosphere. I have of course shamelessly given some of my pals a mention.