A few of us headed off from Weymouth early this morning with the notion of paddling around the Isle of Portland. It’s not quite an island in reality, as it’s connected to Dorset by the pebbles of Chesil Beach. This is a tricky trip to get right, as the tide flows all over the place and hence you need to time your arrival at the southern tip carefully. Furthermore, any kind of swell makes landing on steep Chesil Beach (to portage across) pretty hair-raising.
Launching, we hit lumpy swell right away and the wind was fairly stiff…so the full trip around Portland was off. Instead we ambled around sheltered Portland Harbour, lunching on the Isle and playing in the surf and swell outside. This was more fun than it should have been. A few folk got wet.
We were joined by Bertie Beckram, who is a local.
We too had the intention of doing a trip, though of more modest proportions due to our inexperience, on Saturday in Weymouth Bay. We took one look at the conditions and headed off to Wareham and paddled down the Frome into Poole Harbour instead.
I do like the trip from Wareham down the river and across the harbour to Sandbanks…lots of variation on the way.
Hello seakayaksouthwest
I really like your photos (that one of the architecture or Portland Harbour? is great). I have posted a couple of your pictures on my blog, with credits, hope you don’t mind…
One suggestion was if you could also post maps about some of your trips - its hard when we don’t know the area to follow. (or is that undermining the need for the book?)
Best wishes
Kieran
I don’t mind you using my pics, but I do mind not being asked first…
Sorry for any offence. I have removed the images.
No offence taken.