Sitting at the water’s edge after our first day of paddling, we could not believe the landscape that we had entered. Stretched out ahead of us were the twenty-two mile long open waters of Loch Ness, famously known for supposedly hosting their own mythical beast. Having made a late start and covered a relatively short distance that day, we had very little insight into what to expect. The drive to Scotland had been quite a mission itself, but the experience that was to come would change the way we looked at SUP from now on. The idea of crossing Scotland by purely means of stand-up paddleboard came about when Andy, who works for the charity Horseback UK, a charity for injured soldiers, came to train at WeSUP paddleboard centre in Falmouth. This jived with an idea that Sean had been pondering for a while, and after some discussion with WeSUP’s team of riders, a plan was formed: start in Falmouth with four boards and drive to Brighton for a fifth board and then to Norfolk for a campervan support vehicle. Continue up to Inverness to begin a four-day, one hundred mile paddle along the length of the Caledonian Canal, crossing the entire width of Scotland, raising some cash and awareness for Horesback UK as we went. Once completed, we would drive home. What could possibly go wrong? Everything apparently. The kit we had been sponsored to wear during the paddle had not arrived and had to be over-nighted directly from Austria to Scotland. An hour before we left Cornwall, the car that we were going to be using was up on ramps having severely failed its MOT.
