Day 8 - Paddle Board For Sale….

….One Careful Owner, Hardly Stood Up On….oh and a missing central keel.

We woke up having had the best sleep so far. The previous night’s hypnotist must have been better than I thought or maybe it was the alcohol!

After breakfast of coffee and toast, Jackie put on some washing while I finished my blog.

Once our freshly washed clothes were hung up on the line we hit the beach. It is our last full day at this campsite and I had promised myself that I would be standing up on my paddle board by the end of our week here, so I needed to get practicing.

I went straight out on the board and immediately fell off 5 times flat on my back. Jackie waded out and told me that my technique was all wrong. I need to relax and stay still on the board, which seems impossible for me particularly with my arthritic right foot. As I stand up I start to shake violently all over and raise a leg and hop about like a flamingo with MS before keeling over dead.

Jackie took over, stood up and paddled off into the distance. I’m close to admitting defeat.

We later took it out for a sit down paddle back to back. I suspect we looked like a particularly ‘sexy’ version of the Kappa logo.

Our paddle turned into a water safari, when I spotted a metallic blue flash in the bushes to the side of the lake. It turned out to be a pair of Kingfishers known in France as martin-pêcheur and are a protected species in France since 1981. You cannot catch them , hunt them, or even pick one up when it is dead!!!

Jackie couldn’t see anything because she was not wearing her contact lenses or glasses, so we returned to the beach.

It was nearly one o’clock, so we retired to the shade for lunch. Jackie knocked up a selection of cheese on crisp breads with a beer and wine

After lunch I went out solo on the paddle board with my waterproof camera in search of the kingfishers Maybe I could become an expert aquatic wildlife photographer instead. Hopefully my kingfisher photos will be testament to that!!

I learnt to recognise the kingfishers distinctive shrill "tchiii" call as they flitted past me and out of sight on several occasions. Each time I tried to prime my camera to take a photo the little buggers flew away. Eventually one rested on a branch and I pointed the camera and shot blindly at him.

I returned later with Jackie now wearing her glasses. The oaf on the back fell off the board and evidently scared the kingfishers away. Jackie soon got bored when they didn’t return and made inane comments that she had spotted a jaguar, then a crocodile. I paddled her back to the beach because she was nothing more than a hindrance. Apparently I am now a boring twitcherer!!

I did have one final unsuccessful attempt to capture the kingfishers in their natural habitat. Jackie also had a final stand up paddle that lasted just a few seconds twice!

We finished the remainder of the afternoon sun on the beach with a glass of wine or two and contemplated the packing up process.

Around 7pm I carried the paddle board back to camp and turned it over to deflate it. It was then that I discovered that the larger central keel was missing, which explained why the board had become less stable so that even Jackie struggled to stand up on it.

I was mildly irritated to say the least, particularly as I had repeatedly said to Jackie to be careful of the keels when she insisted on lying on the board on the beach and when she persistently grounded the board on the shallow sand banks in the lake.

Apparently I could have lost the keel when I kept falling off. I’m starting to wonder if it was an act of sabotage to prevent me becoming a master paddle boarder.

The packing up commenced in stony silence. We had more cheese and crackers for our tea and had an early night.

Song of the Day - Sabotage by Suede.もっと詳しく