The Sustainable Sea Kayaking Project; Exploring Connections in South Connemara

 The Sustainable Sea Kayaking Project; Exploring Connections in South Connemara

 

A few weeks ago, in August, I had the pleasure of packing up my car, sea kayaks on the roof, and setting off for South Connemara for a three day paddle trip with my friend Muireann.  With the intention of adventure and nature immersion, we weren’t going far wrong with a venue such as this, and a medium such as paddling.  Exploring through landscape, seascape, colour, and time in South Connemara was an adventure for the mind and the body.  Slow adventure creates space for creativity and mental clarity, and draws a deeper peace and presence than much else does for me.

The opportunity for this journey was given to me through the Sustainable Sea Kayaking project, a new project run by Jon Hynes.  I was lucky enough to be chosen as the very first participant in this project last summer.  After a few calls with Jon I joined him at the ISKA Symposium for an evening amongst the kayaking community, and in October of 2024 I joined him in West Cork for a few days of paddling, getting to accompany both a Level 3 Skills course and a Level 3 Instructor course.  This was uniquely insightful, getting to observe how these courses are taught from my perspective of having instructorships in other sports, but being a relative beginner in this sport.  

Through this week I got to meet and get to know many lovely paddlers who were all so warm and friendly, as well as learn and practice new skills with Jon and the other instructors I met.  West Cork is a place I know and love deeply, and what struck me particularly during those few days was getting to explore these familiar seascapes through a new medium.  Practicing self-rescue with a paddle float was one of the highlights for me, as I had not done that before!  

 

Figuring out new skills in the blue waters and rocky pools between Sherkin island and Heir island. 

At the end of the few days Jon handed me a big bag of gear to use, a paddle, and of course the beautiful kayak which we dubbed ‘Fastnet Flyer’ - an apt name for a beautiful boat in an equally beautiful place.  Strapped onto the roof of my car, the kayak was mine for the year.

An excited smile testing out Fastnet Flyer for the first time!

The following few months were spent focusing on my final year in university.  If I was to advise whoever comes next into this project, I would choose a time when you will be more able to take advantage of an opportunity such as this.  Yet, despite the fact that I was more limited in availability during this year, this project still offered me such a wonderful opportunity, and I certainly got so much value from it.  This stands to the fact that opportunity, in whatever form it comes in, leads to action and progress if you are willing to follow it.  

As the culmination of this project, I had the joy of planning and going on this paddle journey.  With the support of Jon, I planned the trip and considered my intentions for the journey.  ‘Connections’ was the theme for this journey, and they manifested in both expected and joyously unexpected ways along the way.  

For this journey, I avoided using my phone and chose to only use a film camera for my photographs.  This made each photo so much more intentional, and it was a joy to receive the developed images a few weeks after I returned from the trip.  We also got most of our weather reports through the handheld VHF, becoming surprisingly good at consistently remembering to tune into the broadcast every three hours.  

Our route began from the quay on Annaghvaan (Eanach Mheáin) in the early morning of our first day, with lunch on Inishbarra and our camp on Finish island.  The second day took us to Mason island for lunch, and around Mace head, finishing on Inishlacken on the northern shores of Roundstone bay.  Finally, on day three, a short paddle up to Roundstone quay concluded our journey back to the second car. 

  Sunrise on Eanach Mheáin before we set off.

Connections…..

Nature 

Setting out on this journey, one thing I knew I was seeking was immersion in nature, and the deep peace and sense of self-to-world connection I receive from it.  Certainly, south Connemara was an eerily, solemnly beautiful place to seek this.  It had a melancholy air, and I was wrapped up in the alone-ness of nature.  On that first day of our paddle, the silence and noticeable lack of the buzz of humans was what struck me, as we weaved our way amongst the warm-hued gray and sand-coloured rocks, tinged with yellow lichen and topped with that uniquely striking green grass of the west.  Each corner we turned echoed with the self-contented silence of nature.  

I was filled with colour that day, struck several times entranced with the shades of seemingly simple images before me.  A landscape that is often described as bleak and gray, opened itself up to me as we paddled forward, welcoming me into its colourful embrace and revealing its true beauty.  The heaths atop the rocky shoreline were not just brown and green, but collaged with lilac, lavender, deep purples, oranges, and striking red hues as paint-splatters across the blooming heather.  Around another corner lay a vision of bright yellow - seaweed floating in the tropical turquoise water of the shallower shores, with the shadowy presence of the part that floated beneath the water awash in a deep purple hue.  A thought played on my mind as these images imprinted in my vision - what a joy it is to exist amongst such colour.  

The rocks have a true presence in this part of our land.  Great heaps of power hewn to smooth, blocky boulders by glacial forces long dissipated.  Each shoreline pleased my eyes as I observed colour changes within tidal zones and along the coast, from deeper red-brown hues to bright and energetic sand coloured boulders. 

Exploring Finish Island - featuring me as a reference for size!  

The gorgeous colours of the rocks, morning time on Finish Island.

Our night on Finish island was plagued with infuriating biting mosquitos which found us wishing for more wind, escaping to my tent to eat dinner with one spoon and all the doorways zipped up, and generally putting us both in foul humour.  This meant we both retired to bed early and got good sleep, and mercifully were relieved of the plague the following morning.  I have decided to cross off the jungle from any future adventure ideas, and am considering axing Scotland too! 

The Boat

The Fastnet Flyer, with her ocean-cockpit design and tippier nature, has been a challenge for my level of paddling ability.  Something I considered before this trip was my connection to this boat herself.  I wanted to see how spending this extended time with the boat would change this connection.  

Certainly, the longer we paddled the more I learned her ways of movement and learned the ways in which I reacted to her.  This taught me both about the boat and about myself.  

Paddling in stronger winds, or across wider jumps with a longer fetch, brought me back to a particularly windy crossing of the Long Island Sound from Schull to Long Island, and I found myself being physically very tense.  It was in these moments that the presence of my lovely paddling partner Muireann was particularly valued, as her calm and competent presence allowed me to sit in this discomfort.  Though it never fully abated, I certainly felt more confident paddling in stronger winds by the second and third day of our paddling, with some particularly windy sections in a long stretch of fetch at the seaward end of Bertraghboy Bay.  

That it never fully abated is not a loss, but rather the knowledge that I am still working towards new skills and new confidence.  Kayaking in all its forms seems to hold a different feeling of fear for me than my other sports, and I am beginning to enjoy the power it seems to hold on me.  A challenge is always worth the effort in trying to overcome, once the balance point of fun and discomfort is found.  Fear has a peculiar draw, and a satisfying feeling in the chest when being challenged in new things.  

The beautiful retro look of the Fastnet Flyer is another aspect I enjoyed.  The long, elegant silhouettes of both of our kayaks as they sat awaiting us during lunch breaks was always a pleasing sight to see.  The pure white of the hull of my kayak, with its long waterline as she sat in the water, reminded me of an egret, delicate and elegant.  

Some of the kayakers we met on Mason Island enjoyed the scene of myself and Muireann paddling these boats, older than ourselves, without the fancier newer gear and features of modern models.  Something felt genuine about our use of these vessels - seeking out the sport itself, the experience of a paddle, rather than the market of gear that surrounds it.  These boats brought us on this journey, working with us, keeping us safe, and carrying the weight of our needs as we travelled.  There is a simplicity to it.  They certainly added to the atmosphere held within the photos I took on my film camera along the journey.  To be held by these boats that were built before we entered this world, as we explore our own independence, is an interesting contrast.  It feels in some way that it makes sense. 

The tiny hatches were also a point of comedic frustration during the trip!  My packing skills quickly improved, and my knowledge of my gear and where each piece belonged. I made friends with the intricacies of these hatches and enjoyed the process, accompanied by the chorus of sound effects that were emitted during the effort of each morning’s packing.  My relationship with my sleeping bag, however, became increasingly contentious each time I tried to stuff it into my kayak.  Muireann can certainly vouch for this!  

History and Context of Place

As is so commonly associated with Connemara, there is a feeling of the past hanging still on the air here.  As we paddled along the shorelines, hopping between the boulders and bays, the landscape had an ancient sense to it and I felt that I was paddling through time.  The rocks that lie solid and silent here hold the memory of the past in their silence.  I felt a sense of reverence while being in their presence. 

Scenes of layers upon layers of characterful ruins of stonework houses, with old chimneystacks silhouetted against sunlight and sunsets, painted a picture of the past as we lay warm in our own temporary tent homes.  Thoughts of what life must have been like on these islands, and the culture that must have come along with it, became a consistent thread throughout the journey and one that arose in our conversations as we paddled.  

Flicking through history books the night before we set off, as we cooked and ate our first dinner on the old quay on Eanach Mheain, gave us some context to the people that resided in these lands and the way in which they sustained themselves.  There is so much knowledge of the past here to know - I remain hungry to learn more.  Our simple way of life as we paddled seemed to aptly reflect what I imagine was a simpler way of life that was led here before, though undoubtedly without the labour and hardship of making a life year-round on these shores.

Chimney stacks on Finish Island.

Ruins on the northern shores of Mace head.

The Language 

Muireann and I decided to spend some part of every day speaking Irish together - ag caint as Gaeilge le chéile!  I am in no way fluent, but get a huge amount of enjoyment from using what I have.  Our words, focail i nGaeilge, flowed between us all about what we were seeing around us as we paddled.  ‘Níl sé domhain anseo!’ (It isn’t deep here!) - we could not remember the word for shallow (éadomhain) and so this alternative sentence was exclaimed with amusement frequently throughout the trip.  With my mind absorbed by the unfolding experience of the paddle, the language slotted in naturally between us when one of us chose to slip into it.  Bhain mé an taitneamh as an gcuid seo, agus go raibh maith agat Muireann for sharing this with me.

Being in a Gaeltacht area meant that the act of forming these words on my tongue somehow felt more appropriate.  On coming across a small group of other sea kayakers just as we reached Finish Island, our brief conversation with them flowed into Irish as well.  With the meaning of each placename countrywide being unlocked when looked at through the lens of Gaeilge, the context of the place we paddled through made more sense as Gaeilge as well.  We took to calling our starting island of Annaghvaan by its true name of Eanach Mheáin, as it felt so much more natural on the tongue.  It is a joy to be able to use this language that is so wrapped up in the shape of our lands and our seas.  Yet at the same time I notice I feel angry that it still remains a stilted, broken form as it comes out of my mouth, denied my own language.

The People

Something that surprised me on this trip was the level of connection we encountered with other people.  In envisioning an island-hopping trip, I expected for us to be alone for most of our journey, but in fact it was the opposite.  I was struck by my experience of the paddling community on our adventure, encountering people on land and on sea with each island reached.

As we approached Finish island we encountered a group of paddlers from, if memory serves me correctly, Shearwater kayakers.  We chatted and made connections over mutual acquaintances, all while speaking both English and Irish before we paddled on.  Another pair of their group then approached, with whom we stopped and chatted for longer and were informed of two women from their party camping on Mason island for the night if we wanted company.  

After a camp on Finish island, with the beautifully refurbished stone house near the quay providing the presence of other people and their dogs, we continued on to Mason island for lunch the following day.  We chose to stop there having spotted kayakers on the beach, and sure enough we met the two aforementioned paddlers - Margaret and Anne - as well as a separate pair of male paddlers camping on the island too.  Food was generously shared, as were smiles and nice conversation, with help pulling up our kayaks coming lumbering down the beach towards us as we approached.  Just like us, the two men were not part of a kayaking club, so it was decided that we will make the ‘Lone Wolves’ club.  Or, ‘the Leftovers’ club!  Member applications opening shortly…

After rounding Mace head, we paddled in the tiny gap of water between the mainland near the Atmospheric Research Station and the small islet of land to the northwest.  As we did, we watched a figure in an orange t-shirt watch our track and meander down to the rocks on the shoreline just to have a chat with us about the kayaks and our paddle.  After a kind offer of a water refill, we paddled onwards. 

Finally, on Inishlacken, we made the most warm and lovely connections with Tadgh and Sarah and their kids from the little cottage near the beach.  Having been invited to their campfire spot above the sand, we wandered down together after our tents were set up, our clothes hung out to dry, and our appetites satisfied with a meal.  What awaited us was warm and interesting conversation that meandered between topics of life and lifestyle choice, family and raising children, and the outdoors and spending time outside.  The light hung low in the sky before we said our goodnights - an evening thoroughly enjoyed and we found our feelings pleasingly lifted in unexpected connection.  

My camp on Inishlacken.

After a morning swim and time spent watercolour painting and playing tin whistle together as Muireann and I sat on the north shores of the island, we packed up and paddled the last stretch into Roundstone quay.  Plein-air painters awaited us on the quay, an unknowing welcoming party, as did delicious sandwiches from the cafe just up from the slipway.  Having spent this section describing our connections to other people, I must highlight the lovely connection I have with Muireann.  In speaking of connecting to people, this trip allowed us to strengthen our own connection and exuberate in the joy of our shared independence.  I am so excited to continue adventuring with her.

Tar éis an turas seo, tá a fhios agam go bhfuil mé grá-abalta dul ag taiscéal mar seo, ar an uisce nó ar an talamh, le céasla, no seol, no mo chos féin.  Buíochas leis an domhan seo. 

To finish, I want to advise anyone who is considering applying for this project to not hesitate and to reach for the chance.  Move towards opportunities like this with an open mind, and you will always find value in the experiences.  The opportunity to have both gear and my own kayak for the year, as well as the support and opportunity to join in on courses given by Jon, gave me a step up in my kayaking progression.  Sea kayaking was something that I was looking to explore further, and this project came at just the right time for me.  I move forward in my journey with gratitude for the opportunities I received through this, lovely memories and a base of more experience, as well as the knowledge that there are people out there willing to support me and others along the way.  I will certainly pass on the baton with joy, and will pay the support forward in my own life further on.  Go raibh míle maith agat to Jon Hynes and the Sustainable Sea Kayaking project!  

Our beautiful kayaks awaiting us on Inishlacken beach, with the Connemara mountains gracing the background.

Unpacking at the end of our journey, at Rounstone harbour.