Summer Dreams

The time has come for me to go through all the photos from 2021's brilliant summer season, and refresh the whole website. It is a time consuming job because there are so many fabulous photos to choose from, and all the great memories that come with them. Every single client that came out on adventures with us last year enjoyed themselves and relaxed with us. I can say that assuredly as they were all, without exception, lovely people, chatty and full of questions. This is how people behave when they are happy!
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The only problem with last season, for me, was that I had to turn so many people away because we were fully booked months in advance.
I also had to cancel a significant number of sea kayaking sessions due to poor weather conditions. Sea kayaking, especially with inexperienced or beginner kayakers, is very dependent on the wind. I am cautious; I don't take people out when the conditions are borderline.

So I have been having a think about how to improve the way I do things. I want to minimise disappointment, and reduce the admin time I spend on the thankless task of turning business away and trying to juggle a full calendar of clients into small weather windows. I am not keen to scale things up, as I love working in this personal way with individuals and small groups. 

One solution for groups and families who want multiple bookings in one week, is to give over the whole week to that group. This is my thinking behind the new 'Sea Kayaking Holiday'!! Most people are here in Harris for 6 days, so if you book four full days with us, we won't take any other bookings for that week. This will allow us to plan activities with you for the four best days, leaving you two (probably windy) days to go and do the other sight seeing you might want to do. I am selling this as a Sea Kayaking Holiday...but there is no reason why it has to be! We can literally do any of our activities during those 4 good weather days. We will get to know each other really well and have a lot of fun! Daryll and I can also give you loads of ideas for things to do on your days off.

I am blogging this at the outset of the year to give you the chance to get it booked up now!! I expect my calendar to fill up fast from April onwards, so you only have a month or two to get your own Wild Harris Week reserved-otherwise they will all be full with individual bookings.

The other thing I am going to try is giving people a 2 day window for every individual session booked. If someone has a really tight schedule and can ONLY sea kayak on a certain day, at a certain time, they are much more likely to be disappointed. If we have 2 days to play with, that gives us four times the chance of getting out! It does mean that a couple may often be put together with another couple to make a group of four, but I will try and match people by level of experience as much as possible.

New for 2022 we have a kayak trailer, which means we will not be tied to our base at Meavaiag North, or Hushinish. Both are outstanding places to sea kayak, but our base is not good in a NE or straight S wind. Hushinish picks up prevailing swell easily, being right out at the western tip of North Harris, so it is often off limits. Those of you that paddled there last summer were so lucky! It is undoubtedly a world class venue.
Anyway, the trailer will open up lots of options for those days when the wind is wrong, or the swell too big. We can explore other parts of the island's coast such as Loch Seaforth, Rhenigeadale, Tarbert and the Bays, which are all really familiar to me from my years with The Scaladale Centre.
So book now and bring summer dreams into focus!
Stay cosy, see you later in the year.
(Local residents and Byre guests qualify for discount on activities)
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Loch Trolamaraig near Rhenigeadal