Vilanova/Sitges – Sea Kayaking

It all happened so quickly! On Friday afternoon we were told that the paragliding we were hoping to go to was cancelled so I needed to find something to do for Saturday. I searched Barcelona but apart from Gay Pride there was nothing much going on and we’d already seen that last year. Then I quickly sent a message to Gyula, a Hungarian living on the Costa Dorada, asking if we can go to try sea kayaking with him. By the evening a message was waiting for me, I called him and by 7pm it was all sorted. On Saturday we’re doing sea kayaking the first time in our lives!

We met Gyula at the train station with two other Hungarian guys, Krisztian and Gergo. It looked like it’s going to be another Hungarian event but luckily the guys spoke perfect English and Gyula spoke in Spanish to Paul. Again, we were communicating in three different languages.

We first went to pick up a red kayak that we had rented for the day. We threw it on the top of Gyula’s car then went to his workshop to pick up the other two kayaks. When Gyula opened the door of his workshop, we all stared. There was a beautiful, very professional looking yellow kayak in front of us. There were lots of other things to inspect, too, like chiropractic beds, at least 8 bikes in all shapes and sizes, canvases and carpenter tools and a paddle that used to belong to the Hungarian olympic kayak team in the ’92 Olympic Games.

Gyula put the three kayaks on top of each other with Krisztian and secured them together with the 6 paddles while we waited feeling extremely excited on the side.

When all was set we were off. First we popped into a supermarket to get some provisions. When we came out we looked at the car park thinking ‘how does Gyula’s car look exactly’? Spot the car!

We drove down to a little stony beach behind Sitges and got the kayaks and ourselves ready.

When it was all set all Gyula said was ‘get in guys and paddle for about 30-40m, after that the sea will calm down’. Well, after great difficulty we managed it and we were off. It was an amazing feeling being on the water in the kayak! We slowly learnt how to work together with Paul and I could admire the pretty beaches and the strange, weird formations of the Costa Dorada.  Luckily Gyula had a GoPro camera set up on his awesome kayak so he took some photos that I’m allowed to share with you.

After about an hour we stopped in this little cave. Right in front of the cave on a big rock cormorants sunned themselves. Then we were off again.

Learning to kayak is very easy, you just have to move the paddle. Thanks to this you can very quickly forget about the physical part and fully give yourself over to the experience. It’s so peaceful being on the water! Sometimes we stopped paddling and just leaned back to enjoy the sunshine and watch the view. On the way we met another group of kayakers, we passed some boats, we watched the train chugging along on the shore and even a plane flew over us with an advert.

We pushed all the way to Vilanova when we stopped in the mouth of a river for lunch.

After about an hour rest we were ready to head back. Krisztian opted to wait for us so this time Gergo paddled his boat alone. We stopped to have a look at a little cave that was shaped in a way so that when the waves hit it it makes a loud, roaring noise like a huge animal! When we got back to our little beach the boys had a splash in the sea.

We were tired but very happy when we went back to pick up Krisztian. Gyula washed off all the kayaks then gave us a lift to the train station. On the way back to Barcelona we all had a little power nap.

What an amazing day we had! Special thanks to Gyula Lerner who made this day possible in such a short notice for us. Thanks to him we have utterly fallen in love with kayaking. Can’t wait for the next time!