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Today was one of the “don’t go anywhere” days, except that only really meant not going anywhere in the car. We were still allowed to go out so long as we walked there.
We had a lazy morning, with Kas going for her normal run and the kids mucking about in the pool.
On the day-planner we’d made on Monday night (see Girona) we’d put down “kayaking” for today, so we had a bit of exploring to do.
It was easy enough to find the phone number of the kayaking place on Sant Pol beach and they confirmed we could just walk up and take a couple of kayaks out. They had a formal trip leaving at 2pm but they thought that might be a bit much with the kids as the formal trips follow a set route and go at a certain pace.
OK, we thought, so we’ll just walk down for about 1:30 and see what’s what.
The kayaks were great big plastic things with seating for two. We split the weight approximately halfway by getting Kas and Ami to take one kayak and me and Izzy to take the other. This meant my boat was somewhat lower in the water at the back than at the front, but otherwise it was quite a pleasant sensation. Izzy was a very keen paddler but not particularly effective, so I was basically driving our boat on my own. Kas and Ami were a little more balanced.
The water on the sea was a bit choppy and was worse the further away from the cliffs, in fact the centre of the bay was quite bumpy, so we hugged the coastline quite closely for most of the time. First of all we paddled around the south side of the bay where all the interesting little bays were, and had great time paddling in and out of quite small but calm inlets. After this we paddled all the way across the bay to the north shore, which was somewhat less interesting. By this time we’d been out for 80 minutes of our 120 minute rental, but decided our arms were aching enough to stop, so we had a final paddle across the bay into the middle and tried to get up to “ramming speed” so we could get the kayaks up onto the beach quite well before trying to get out. Thankfully there was an attendant to help drag us up anyway.
It was still quite early in the afternoon so we decided to stay on the beach for a while, and this is where I made my biggest error of the holiday. I assumed the late afternoon sun wouldn’t be strong enough to burn me, so while the kids were playing in the water I took my shirt off and lay on the beach for a bit. When I got home I was bright red and itching all over. The itching stayed with me for the rest of the holiday. Oh, when will I learn ? Sunshine and me don’t mix well.
It was sausage and salad night again for tea, but sadly the accompanying beer did nothing to take away the itchiness.