During the week I learned about a trio of women from the UK, Natalie, Lindsey and Zoe, who had been circumnavigating Ireland counter-clockwise for the last two months. They called their trip the Dropseat Adventure. Natalie has a blog and posted regularly throughout the trip. The first post explains the trip name and the rest of the journey can be followed from there.
It was a nice thing to do, heading out to greet them as they arrived back. Mick O’Farrell from the club had been posting about it on the club website, and I was hoping that there’d be a few people going out in boats to greet them, but in the end we waited for them on the slipway.
The three were in good spirits, though I was a bit surprised that there wasn’t more of a sense of occasion about it. They did seem very happy with themselves and the trip itself. Mick had a bottle of whiskey that they had given him when they left, which he opened and the three women had a celebratory tipple.
We all chatted with them for a bit. It turns out they camped almost every night. They never stayed in paid accommodation, though they were given a place to stay a few times by some helpful folk along the way. The trip started at the beginning of June and in total they spent twelve days on land between then and today. Eileen Murphy said she spent forty-four days at sea, if I remember correctly, making the Dropseat crew’s trip shorter by two days. It was an impressive feat.
I find the circumnavigation thing a bit too abstract for myself. Maybe if/when I’m capable of doing something like it I’ll feel differently, but now the idea of identifying a place that looks interesting and spending time to explore it as fully as possible is more appealing.
In any case, it was good to meet the crew, as well as a few more people from the club, and it was also good to do something that feels like it has broader meaning; meeting and supporting kayakers from another country and acknowledging an achievement of women in sport 🙂