Back to the Island

With all the Autumn rains, the River Thames has risen and is constantly running now at over 100 tonnes of water a second. Which is very fast. It also means that running any sort of event, let alone paddling on the river would just be dangerous.

The solution has come from our friends at Island Barn Sailing Club and the Island Barn Reservoir. They have welcomed us to their club and allow AquaPaddle Hampton-Molesey continue through the Autumn and Winter.

Being at the Reservoir means an earlier arrival time of 8am, so we can fit in with the clubs sailing programme. We had 10 AquaPaddlers signed up and all 10 duly arrived and checked in with the Time-Lord which as great to see.

As usual we have a mixed group starting with Henry in his Surfski. It’s quite a craft and looks very impressive at speed. After the start Henry was off, he was on a mission, he was followed, by Ed and Devon pushing hard and then the rest of the fleet.

The Crew, spread out across the water. Since the paddlers were going round the outside, the visibility of everyone was excellent. It is deceptively large. But it does give excellent radio coverage and the Crew where keeping me informed of the AquaPaddlers progress, plus occasionally a little banter 😁

25 minutes after starting, Henry crossed the line a new AquaPaddle record, beating the previous time of 25:04 set by Blake at AquaPaddle Rotherham in September. Could you go faster?

The weather was calm and strangely beautiful with rain threatened for later.The views from up on the Reservoir are excellent and you can see the North Downs and across West London. It is definitely worth getting up earlier for.

After less than an hour, the AquaPaddle was finished and we all headed for the Club House for a well earned cup of something warming. There was some excellent conversations being had and we were all looking forward to our next visit to the Island – Fun Fact, the reservoir is on an island between the Mole and Ember Rivers.

AquaPaddle is run purely on Donations. If you would like to support the AquaPaddle, please help if you can by giving a donation.