Me getting airlifted from the water, on the way to glastonbury.

On tuesday 15th June 2010 I departed great holland in essex, for the first stage of a six day expedition to the glastonbury festival by kayak.

I left in good weather and with a favourable forecast, however the conditions quickly worsened and after covering about 20 miles i was forced to call for assistance.

I was winched to safety in the helicopter, and the boat was recovered by the Burnham on Crouch inshore lifeboat.

My initial guilt as to the amount of public money which had been expended on my account was kindly put to rest by the thames coastguard staff, who pointed out that the helicopter and lifeboat are required to carry out a certain number of hours of exercise each week, so had they not been rescuing me they would have been in operation anyway, elsewhere.

the plan now is to take the boat by road to greenwich in london and continue the jourmey to glastonbury from there, as the forecast is too bad to make another attempt at the open water section of the journey in time for the festival.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• helicopter
• glastonbury
• music
• festival
• kayak
• canoe
• air
• sea
• rescue
• airlift

[lifeboat911]

i know it rains a bit at those festivals , but that was a wet one .

on a serious note , glad your well and great footage .

[Snuffomatica]

This is great - couldn't you have just gone by National Express or something? ;)

[FlipFloptheGog]

Glad you were OK, I just thought I should point out that no public funds were wasted by the launch of the lifeboat becuase the RNLI receives no money from the government, it is 100% funded by charitable donations. They are always happy to be called out and the crew do it for free but the boats fuel etc isn't

[stumbles111]

Hahah Simon, that's a pissa.

I picked up a copy of the Gazette on the train and saw you smiling at me!

see you round buddy, add me on Facebook when you get home