A mangrove wander around St Helena

After being off the water for a couple of weeks it was nice to get back in the saddle, so to speak, and head out for a paddle around St Helena.  Last time I was out paddling with the ski bunnies (not the picture you are thinking right now!), they had me trying out various different wing paddles to see how they felt.

An honest assessment of my paddling style would be it looks like crap but it works for me so the transition to a wing paddle will take some refinement.  I borrowed an older mid-wing for this paddle and the shape still let me get away with some of my crapper habits and analysing my outputs I think I could have paddled at a faster rate with my euro.  The more modern shape wing paddles that I tested on the previous paddle seemed to enforce a better paddle stroke and I felt that it improved my power ratio on flat water.

My biggest concern in switching away from the euro to the wing is how this will affect my ability to roll the kayak.  My bomb proof role is the extended paddle roll, something I can slow down without adding any pressure on my shoulders which may have taken a bit of caning through 20 years of playing rugby in the front row and various cycling accidents (7mm distortion in my AC from the last one).

I'm taking a new mid-wing for a paddle next weekend and will start playing with refining my roll to suit a wing paddle so will be interested to see how it goes.  Some landscape photos from a short break on St Helena follow: