Chris Allix of Dominion Marine, has finally departed on his long kayak trip from the Isle of Man to Monaco, to raise money for his chosen charities. Chris left the most northerly tip of the Island, the Point of Ayre, at 11.15 on Tuesday 26th June. Chris was accompanied by expert sea kayaker Keirron Tastagh of Adventurous Experiences, who made sure Chris arrived back on dry land safely.

Chris and Keirron reached Whitehaven 9 hours after leaving the Island and Chris described his trip to us:

"We soon hit the current running from the north west which whisked us along at a very good pace. As we expected, the head wind caused some wave disruption but nothing too harsh. The Island quickly disappeared. Little did we know then that it would be a further 8 hours before we would see land again. As the day progressed the weather worsened with rain and fog. The current took us further south than we expected and unfortunately not as far east as we had anticipated. So, we missed the northerly current running along the coast which we faced after the tide changed, and hit the more westerly current which took us back away from the UK.

Keirron quickly recalculated his projections and we had to paddle hard directly to the east and with the fog we were unable to see any land because the visibility was down to about 1 mile. At about 7.30pm we spotted a shadow in the fog directly to the East, we continued paddling and to our relief saw a town appearing out of the fog, it had to be Whitehaven and it was. We landed at 8.15pm.

This was a very tough kayak trip and I am pleased to have completed what I always thought would be one of the hardest (if not the hardest) sections of my marathon to Monaco. The weather, especially the fog, made this really hard. We felt that we were going around in circles although the compasses proved us wrong.

I cannot express my gratitude enough to Keirron who agreed to accompany me at the last minute on the Irish Sea crossing; without him I could never have completed this and with the weather closing in the whole trip could have been in jeopardy."

Chris carries on down to Monaco through the English and French waterways, arriving in time for the Monaco Yacht Show in September. Further information is available on his website: www.mantomonaco.com.