A CROWD gathered in Sherkin Library on a Sunday afternoon, as the sun was shining over the island.

Kayaker and Sherkin resident Pat Rodgers was there to introduce his new book, Chasing Tides, to his friends, family, neighbours and curious visitors from the mainland.

At the age of 55, Pat has documented his extraordinary journey along the Irish coast, based on travel diaries he wrote in 1997 when he was 26.

That year, he was working as an outdoor instructor in Galway and Connemara where he met his friend Jimmy O’Toole. Together, they set off on what became Pat’s 1,500 km circumnavigation of the whole island on water.

The journey started at Toe Head before they paddled past a seal through the arch of Kedge Island, then along the beaches of Sherkin and towards the rugged Sheep’s Head Peninsula via Mizen Head, all in the first couple of days.

“We camped in some hard-to-reach places. In a sea kayak you can land on small islands, rocks or beaches you can’t get to any other way. We pulled up on a rocky shoreline at the tip of Sheep’s Head and I was feeling exhausted that day,” said Pat.

“My wrists were giving me trouble. But we found a patch of grass and set up our tent. There was a stream running over the cliff, so I had a bit of a wash. It was amazing.”

In Chasing Tides, Pat wanted to tell the story of how the journey felt at the time.

The free spirit of curiosity, exploration and improvisation jumps from every page.

There was no GPS tracker, no digital map available back then, so Pat and Jimmy had to listen to the sea area forecast on a Walkman radio. Occasionally they made it to a pub in time to catch it after the RTÉ news.

Challenging conditions

Pat recalls some very bad weather early on when they got stuck in Valentia Island for four days, before paddling across to Dingle Bay and Dunquin.

“The weather there was horrible again, so we were stuck in Dunquin for another ten days. We eventually ventured on to the Three Sisters, Sybil Head and around Mount Brandon. We had very, very challenging conditions. The wind had dropped but there was still a big swell and a really messy, uncomfortable, lumpy sea. It was the only time I ever felt sea sick in a kayak,” he remembered.

Their most challenging and longest open crossing came at Donegal Bay, as they paddled from north Mayo over to the cliffs at the foot of Slieve League.

“That was around 60km. The weather was good enough to tackle that distance. It took us ten hours without stopping.” He added: “We had chocolate bars in the kayak and bottles of water but on that crossing I did not drink enough. I got very dehydrated and at the end was just drinking, drinking, drinking.” Near Drogheda, Co Louth, a couple of locals heard Pat talking to the coast guard station via his handheld VHF radio. As he came on land, he was welcomed at the beach and invited into their home, with a big fry up cooked for dinner. It’s just one of the stories found in the book about characters he met along the way.

Lifelong passion

The former engineer was introduced to kayaking at age 13 on a school trip to an outdoor pursuits centre. He says he was hooked the first time he got into a fibreglass kayak. Pat later became an instructor and has run his own business on Sherkin Island since the summer of 2021, H2O Sea Kayaking.  In kayaking as in life, there are challenges and stormy conditions around the
corner. In Pat’s case it was a diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in 2023, while also being made redundant from his engineering job. The illness has affected his daily life, although he is recovering well, and says the silver lining of it all was this: he had time to sit down and write the book he always wanted to write. Along his unforgettable journey, Pat got to see some spectacular landscapes and wildlife, including seals, sea otters and a minky whale that came to the surface around 20 metres away from his kayak.

Painted scene

A scene from his ocean adventure is on the cover of the book. A colourful painting shows Pat wearing a red jacket and a blue hat with a green mesh bag behind him holding fishing gear, paddle extended into the air and steering his yellow kayak across the spraying waves.

In 2009, he met his future wife Tina Reed who created the painting. It’s a scene from his journey between Brandon and the Maharees, the one place Pat capsized in his kayak. And also the only image of the trip because his camera and a disposable replacement camera were both lost along the way. The dedication you’ll come across on the first pages of the book is to Tina, with whom he moved to Sherkin Island in 2021.

“Our first date was climbing in the MacGillycuddy Reeks, on the second one we want orienteering and for the third date we went on an adventure race together up in Northern Ireland,” Pat said. The couple have since been on countless outdoor adventures and sea kayaking journeys, including one around the island of Corsica—and tides permitting, there will be plenty more on the horizon. Chasing Tides had its mainland launch at the Irish Sea Kayaking Association’s annual symposium in Bantry on October 3. The books is available at www.chasingtides.ie and at Cathal O’Donovan’s bookshop in Skibbereen.

Pat in the 1990s

A triumhant Pat and Tina Reed at the end of a circumnavigation of Corsica