Kayaking Lake Skadar, Montenegro

Hi everyone – Welcome to Kayaking week from my series on Montenegro. Please check out…

Intro to my trip to Montenegro
Undiscovered Swimming Spots and Bat Cave
Mountain Day

Death by Kayak paddle

To begin the day we all met down by the river in our village of Virpazar, all ready and rearing to go. I can’t remember the last time I went kayaking, if ever, so this was a pretty new experience for me. Our tour organiser, Ben, was keen to to ensure we were all paddling correctly and gave us some advice and tips before hopping into our tandem kayaks. We were kitted out with buoyancy aids which looked like child sized crop tops and tied up our electrical belongings in the water tight bag. Me and the mountain snob (aka Kat, aka my twin sister) would be sharing a boat. He suggested that anyone who had experience kayaking should sit at the back so we decided that the mountain snob, with her kayaking expertise(*cough*), would sit behind me and I would go up front. This meant that Kat had one job…to synchronise with my paddling. For twins you would think that synchronising came naturally to us but this couldn’t have been further from the truth…

 

 

 

One minute I’m paddling too fast then I’m being moaned at that were lagging behind. Unfortunately for Kat, eyes at the back of my head is not a skill I possess! So in between her barking orders at me and hitting her paddle into mine I was about ready to donk her on the head with my paddle and throw her overboard. Personally I think she was just incredibly jealous of my superior paddling skills 😉 We did eventually find a  rhythm and peace was restored in the world again. Next time I think we’ll request our own separate boats though.

The Experience

Despite nearly becoming an only child it was a great experience. You get to explore all of the flora and fauna on the lake. We ate some of the water chestnuts and saw Pelicans patrolling the lake. We ‘gracefully’ paddled across the calm waters and headed towards Grmožur, an old prison island. In hindsight I could have ditched the mountain snob here and left her to enjoy prison life for a few days. Oh well, opportunity lost. We also hopped into the lake for a bit of swimming and took some stupid selfies – One of the guys we were with lost his paddle to the lake never to be seen again. Maybe the paddle was barking orders at him or something!! We then battled a headwind as we paddled further around the lake and stopped off at a little fishermans’ village called Raduš, hidden in a beautiful bay. Lidia and Danilo, two locals, provided lunch served together with a great view over the bay. Fresh fish soup, fried carp from the lake and risotto were on the menu. Nom!  You can also jump off the rocks into the bay if you wish. Not for me though – I prefer life.