The surf rolled in, with a 10 second interval, gentle offshore breeze and all under a beautiful sunny day. Perfect. What further made this a perfect day was that it was the middle of February at Rhosneigr, Anglesey, North Wales. That day seems something of the distant past now, of another coast and land, as snow and Baltic type temperatures grip our coast. So lets return there just for a moment!
I’d briefly paddled the Aries before and was keen to spend longer paddling one and seeing what I could do in it. But I needed to get my hand’s on one. Olly Saunder’s was away and he had an Aries, um maybe….? With a quick text and a detour I had the loan of one, fantastic!
After 5 hours of surfing what clearly stands out for me with the Aries is that it is very forgiving. This then has a knock on effect of building confidence. Not once did I feel thrown by the kayak. Yes, I rolled a couple of times but this was more down to me, rather than the kayak, putting me in. I felt I could trust the Aries and this allowed me to take bigger waves or more committing moves. Being able to trust the Aires allowed me to experiment with moves. I could hold an edge and turn with very little effort. As I started to experiment more with body trim, pressure, dropping a shoulder and weight transfer to turn the Aries, the kayak responded dynamically. It was solid, yet responsive and was also a lot of fun.
The only problem I had, was at the end of the day I had to give it back!
Roger
roger chandler
www.coastalspirit.com
Photos taken by Barry Shaw and thanks to Olly for the loan of the Aries!