Election Day at the Blue Lagoon

Morgan’s school was closed once again for polling on Thursday. So, as is now customary on election days we spent the day at the Blue Lagoon water park in Pembrokeshire with Morgan and two of his friends, Tom and James.

I was up early as usual and was going to go for a bike ride, but on my early morning walk along the beach the surf was looking good so I decided to try out my new stand-up paddle board instead. Although brand new, it’s actually a direct replacement for my Starboard WindSUP Blend 11’2″ as my old one snapped and has since been replaced by Starboard with a new one under warranty. I hadn’t yet had chance to use it though, so after my walk, I got changed and headed over to the beach.

Swell Morning

Snapped SUP fin

The waves were indeed nice so I paddled out through them, getting used once again to the feel of stand up paddle boarding. I then tried to catch a wave, just got on it but fell off. As I did, the board tipped over and as I went to turn it back up the right way I noticed that the fin was hanging off. I thought at first that I must have neglected to tighten the screw on it properly, but on closer inspection the fin itself had snapped. It had broken right across the base, so that put an end to my SUP session for the day.

Back at home I inspected the fin and the base is only 4mm think in some places due to the fact that the Starboard logo is engraved into the fin on both sides. This creates a weak point which is right where the fin has snapped. Quite how or why it snapped I don’t know though as I hadn’t done anything on the board when it happened so I can only assume that it was snapped before hand but hadn’t quite come apart. I’ve been told that a weak point is built into the fin by design so that it does snap if it hits anything. Whilst I believe that, I think the weak point is supposed to be the section that the screw goes though, not where the Starboard engraving is and therefore not where the fin snapped. I’ve got loads fins of the same design, all of which have a thinner section of base through which the screw goes and therefore all of which have such a weakness. However, I’ve never snapped a fin before despite hitting things and running aground at speed on a windsurf board. In fact I’ve never broken anything in this manner except ankles, knees and teeth! I don’t know why this fin was already broken where it was, but  I don’t seem to be having much luck with my Starboard kit at the moment. At least I still have the fin from the old board though so I can use that one for now. I have sent Starboard a photo of the snapped fin to see what they say, but have yet to hear back from them.

The Blue Lagoon

There was then time for a shower and some work before we headed off to collect Morgan’s friends and go to the Blue Lagoon. They wanted to listen to music in the car and the music of their choice all the way was Abba – I did try to convince them that Abba were never ‘cool’, even 40 years ago in the 70’s, but they seemed to think they were! We stopped of at the Teifi Marshes Nature Reserve for a coffee and a picnic on the way there. It was the nicest day of the year so far weather-wise and although still a little chilly in shorts and ‘T’-shirts the sun was shining and there was barely any breeze.

Once at the Blue Lagoon we went straight in and enjoyed what was a nice quiet day there. We choose to go on polling days as most children are at school so the pools and slides of the Blue Lagoon are never too busy. It was nice for Anna and I this time too as we could just let the three boys do their own thing. In the past they have been younger and needed constant supervision, but today we could just sit back and relax – with the occasional go on a slide or float around the Lazy River of course.

Afterwards it was back in the car for the drive home where all three boys fell asleep. A good day out and everyone enjoyed themselves.

Tags: Blue LagoonStand Up PaddleboardingSUPYnyslas