I am a contender for the most useless sailor ever to cross the threshhold of Newport Boat Club. Sailing is beyond me and I have come close to being brained by a swinging boom a number of times on even a relativly friendly craft like the Wayfarer. Tacking, charts, avoiding submerged rocks all proved too much.

And yet, I love the sea, and always return. On holiday we always headed seawards with our children: Islay, Brittany, the Galloway Coast, the Cumbria Coast, Portugal. On Islay we once rowed under a massive Russian Freighter and exchanged greetings with the sailors leaning from their towering and rusty fortress.

Another time we travelled on the Caledonian McBrayne Ferry off the West Coast of Scotland. But for me it was never quite enough. I wanted to be crew, not passenger, and I wanted to explore where I chose. I was fed on the literary exploits of Horatio Hornblower and biographies of Nelson. I was fascinated by the detailed reality of Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey books and I revered the greatest fighting sailor ever, Lord Thomas Cochrane, "The real Master and Commander" according to the Daily Telegraph reviewer. My favourite Cochrane quote is by Lord Byron, in 1821, "There is no man I envy so much as Lord Cochrane."

I wanted independance afloat.

Then the sit-on Kayak arrived: lots of choice, double or single, simple to transport on a car roof, one paddle, instant use, near unbreakable material and a capacity to stay afloat even in a choppy sea.

I saw them stacked outside Havards Shop in Newport, borrowed one from a friend, Susan, at the Newport Boat Club, and I was smitten.

We now have one each (Daphne and myself). We usually leave from Pwllgwaelod with its convenient car park, restaurant/pub, easy access to the sea. Paddling around the cliffs we meet a slow and changing vista of small coves, narrow channels between off shore rocks, shags, cormorants, fulmars - sometimes a seal, porpoise or even a dolphin. Down in the clear water we see crabs, the flicker of a fish and waving forests of seaweed.

They say, "If it is too good to be true, then it probably is." Not this time. At least not for me.