Old Morty found it a bit tricky.  Handling the boat not so easy with age – reflexes, balance and strength, all in decline.  So it’s inevitable there will come a point when it starts to become too dangerous.  Last year I packed in paddling the Nelo K1 before I started falling out of it, and I want to do the same with DW paddling.  I’d rather be proactive, than reactive.  ie.  I don’t want to have an accident to ‘bring me to my senses’.   The obvious solution is to tackle less strong winds.  But of course, the waves become smaller to the point it’s no longer possible to wave ride. The paddle on the 25^th was a good learning experience, which you can see from the blue graph below.  Clearly something went wrong halfway through – what was that?? We set off after 2pm, and I paddled fairly hard, with Gilbert cruising beside me.  I watch my watch all the time when I can, and saw our average speed slowly climb from 6·3mph to 6·9mph (10·1 to 11·1kph), which you can see confirmed on the blue graph for the first 20 minutes.  After the first mile or so, we started to get a tiny bit of help from small waves, just visible on the graph.  Then a dramatic drop in speed and heart rate.  Why?  Because we were hit from behind by a massive squall, with torrential rain, and winds which must have been gusting to 40mph.  The forecast below suggested 30mph, but the Met Office forecast for the same day, had gusts more than 40mph.  There were katabatic gusts too, coming from the mountains on both sides, which started to produce complex wave patterns.  My speed dropped to less than 6mph, but Gilbert was no further ahead.  So we had both been slowed by the conditions, which made for difficult paddling.  The squall lasted a good ten minutes, but after it passed, the waves were much bigger of course, and we started surfing… at last.  You can see the spikes in the blue graph, but max speed just 8·4mph.  I’ve hit 10mph before, so, definitely not that great.  Heart rate remained lower because I’m downing tools from time to time to surf the waves.   My average speed had dropped from 6·9mph to 6·5mph in the squall, and I just managed to squeeze it back to 6·7mph  (10·8kph) at the end of the 10km.  In the last mile we tend to lose the waves as the loch narrows and we reach the island.  I paddled flat out (red graph) to try to get to 6·8mph, but failed.  55 minutes was well down on our best time of under 50 minutes for the 10km.  Gilbert was quicker than me, but zig-zagged a bit to stay fairly close to me for the duration.  Thanks G. All in all, a difficult paddle, and one which will make me think twice about a DW when there are squally showers in the forecast.  From now on, no rain thanks. Average heart rate of 143 is exactly what you might expect from the rough guide of 220 minus your age.  In my case 78.  Hey ho.