Loch of Lintrathen

                                                                                  

Today Stephen Ellis (Montrose Kayaker) and myself The Paddle Bandit went on a early morning paddle to the Loch of Lintrathen, a few miles outside of Kirriemuir in Angus Scotland. We arrived just as the pale sun was beginning to peep its head over the surrounding hills and the temperature was still at the overnight temperature of about 4 and 6 Deg. C and as you can imagine, "Wondering what the hell we were doing here", rather than being tucked up in a warm bed, and why we were proposing to go for a paddle in near freezing water. I was extremely glad to be wearing a winter wetsuit, booties and full finger neoprene gloves, l also had on my Rooster Top to keep out the wind chill of a 23 km predicted wind, later on in our paddle

As the water level was very high, launching proved challenging through the reeds and bushes, and being able to stay out of the water as much as possible, eventually we were in clear moderately choppy water due to the wind that blew through the night and our adventure began.

We were out on the water for nearly 2 hours as conditions improved and the predicted wind gusts did not appear, what was somewhat disturbing was the lack of birdlife etc. which was very prevalent in previous paddles, what was interesting was because of the high level of the water in the Loch, a large island has developed and should provide a safe nesting area for the water fowl that were prolific before.

For people that are new to Paddle Boarding or Kayaking, this is a very nice and safe paddle with plenty of exit points to get off the water if you need to rest from paddling for a while.