South West Sea Kayaking

I’ve been alone for the last few days, as I’m ‘between friends’. Lots of photos of the front of my boat don’t make for great book illustrations, but it’s not a problem as I’ve actually already covered and written up this part of Exmoor’s coast earlier in the year.

A bigger concern has been me, more specifically my physical and mental limitations.

I was worried beforehand that I’m not exactly ‘match fit’, having somehow accumulated a dodgy wrist, a bad back and a spare waist tyre in the weeks beforehand. The wrist has thankfully been no problem, the back pain is controllable via application of Nurofen and (hopefully) the waistline will diminish in due course.

As for the ‘head games’ stuff … it can be a real issue when paddling alone. The photo above shows me rounding Foreland Point after sunset, a few nights back. Landing alone on rocky beaches in surf in the dark might not be everyone’s idea of fun, but the evening trip was a great chance to test myself and restore my confidence out on the water. Last night, I left Lynmouth with a similar paddle in mind, but found myself rather scared in big swell and strong wind. I retreated ashore at the next beach, gibbering. After giving myself a stern talking to (”What would Sean M do?”) I headed out again and actually started enjoying the paddle. I found that close-in to the cliffs (Britain’s highest, as it happens) gave some degree of shelter all the way to the village of Combe Martin.

My reward was the sunset below, which hasn’t been edited in any way. I woke up this morning to the sound of a guy mowing the field around my tent in a neat circle.

Anyway, the weather is now due to improve and I’m being joined by a friend tonight. All good.

Brean Down is a headland in Somerset which extends out towards the island of Steep Holm. It’s the last gasp of the Mendip Hills. A fort at the tip of Brean Down contains numerous hefty gun emplacements, overlooking the Bristol Channel. There are similar fortifications on Steep Holm and Flat Holm, forming a defensive chain across the Channel. In the 1860’s during the run-up to the Franco-Prussian War, the expensive forts were commissioned by Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, to defend Britain from a threat which never came.

Palmerston was rumoured to have died whilst frollicking with a maid on a billiard table. This is totally unrelated to Brean Down.

South of Brean Down is Bridgewater Bay, where tides retreat up to five miles offshore. Unlike Brean Down, this isn’t a good sea paddling location.

Well, since Saturday the paddling has been somewhat mixed. Several of us had a wonderful trip to the islands of Flat Holm and Steep Holm, but afterwards the weather went downhill. All paddling since has been characterised by headwinds and often enough, torrential rain. A number of friends joined me for a few days to sample the joys of sea kayaking for the first time, and mostly experienced the worst aspects of it!

I can hardly moan, given that further up the Severn valley, many thousands have lost their homes to flooding. But I will anyway.

The good news is that my work rate has gone off the scale, and I’ve amazed myself by the amount of writing I’ve managed to get through already. I also had a great twilight paddle to Lynmouth last night, followed by gannets and amazed at the waterfalls tumbling hundreds of feet to the sea.

One more day at school tomorrow, then off paddling!

* First week, paddle west from Somerset to the border with Cornwall with several friends, mostly sea kayak virgins.
* Second week, paddle west as far as Land’s End with another friend (or two).
* Then … meet up with Heather (returned from Canada by then) and relocate to South Devon.
* Third week … paddle west along Devon coast as far as Plymouth. Do Eddystone Challenge thing.
* Fourth, fifth, sixth week etc … paddle west along south Cornish coast to Land’s End.
* Also, write book.

A flawless plan, if ever there was one. I’ll try to keep folk updated where possible, but will be away from home for the duration.

Nothing can go wrong.

For  some time now, two South West paddlers whom I know fairly well have been working on setting up the UK’s first proper sea kayaking magazine. I held back on commenting about their project up to now, because I thought it’d be best to actually see the finished product for myself, before commending it to the masses.

The first copy of ‘Ocean Paddler’ dropped through the letterbox today. What can I say? An excellent top quality publication with great photography and writing. The slick and professional magazine that I have here, looks nothing at all like a ‘first issue’! Congratulations to all involved.

I don’t usually use this blog for this sort of thing, but on this occasion I hope that you’ll indulge me … I strongly recommend that sea paddlers (UK or otherwise) subscribe and see the magazine for themselves.

Monday: sort out Cornwall’s lighthouses and south Devon’s shipwrecks.

Compiling a guidebook isn’t all glamour, fast cars and parties. I’ve spent this entire weekend working my way through information on campsites. For each of 50 chapters, I have researched and checked dozens and dozens of telephone numbers, grid references, accessibility from the sea etc. If this sounds even slightly interesting, take my word for it, it wasn’t. Watching paint dry would have been an engaging alternative. I’ve never been so bored in my life, and I teach History for a living.

However, on the bright side … no, there isn’t a bright side.

The Eddystone rocks are around a dozen miles offshore from Plymouth, and saw the completion of the first ever offshore ’rock’ lighthouse in 1699. Henry Winstanley’s eccentric wooden design was mocked by ‘experts’ as too flimsy and decorative. To prove its mettle, he declared that he would inhabit his creation during, “The greatest storm there ever was”. Be careful what you pray for. With bad weather brewing, Winstanley visited the lighthouse on 26th November 1703. The ensuing hurricane wrecked 150 ships and drowned 8000 sailors. When the storm cleared, it was discovered that Winstanley and his lighthouse had vanished from the face of the earth.

The Eddystone Challenge is an annual race organised by the Mayflower Offshore Rowing Club, this year taking place in August. All manner of human propelled craft are allowed to enter and paddle or row out to, around, and back from the current Eddystone lighthouse. Kayaks have to complete the 28 mile journey in pairs. Heather and I filled in our entry form today. Rest assured that we will only actually participate if we get millpond conditions!

A Friday night paddle, after work. Enough said.

In recent years, there has been an explosion in the popularity of kayak fishing in the UK, making it possibly the largest growth area of paddlesport. Most kayak anglers use specially designed sit-on-tops, as depicted. Beyond those facts, the sport of fishing is frankly a mystery to me, a situation I’d like to rectify. I have been known to attempt a bit of fishing from kayaks myself, albeit with zero success; partly due to my general ineptitude, partly because long expedition kayaks like mine aren’t exactly brilliant platforms for catching and landing reluctant and peeved fish.

The photo below depicts Heather in British Columbia a few years ago, showing how it is done. I really must get her to teach me the knack of this fishing business …

The last couple of evenings have been spent jotting down notes on Cornwall’s maritime history, which is both boring (tin exports! pilchard trawling!) and interesting (smugglers! storms!) at the same time.

This generally lousy and unsettled weather that we’ve been enjoying in the past month is being determined by forces far above our heads. These calm conditions and bluebird skies were photographed on Sunday, in a brief interlude before strong winds arrived (again) and almost stopped us in our tracks.

In just over a week, I set off for the summer. I’ll be living out of the boat for the best part of six weeks. I would very much like for the weather to calm down into a settled pattern.

… was possibly the worst book I’ve ever read. Read the plot synopsis to get some idea of why.

In a totally unrelated turn of events, today comes the surprising news that the MSC Napoli has been refloated, after six months on the seabed off Branscombe beach. The news was surprising to me, anyway, as I’d only recently written the chapter which included info on how to get past the now-missing wreck! No one is sure (or is revealing) what will happen to the Napoli now, but one possibility under consideration is that it will be sunk again, in deeper water!

In the meantime, this seems like a good excuse to revisit our January trip to the Napoli, made just a week after it was beached …

One of the advantages of being a school teacher is that they don’t actually expect you to turn up at work for 13 weeks a year. By my maths, that is a whole quarter of the year spent on holiday. My six week summer holiday begins in two weeks, and I have a plan …

Saturday, five hours straight spent tapping tidal data, ISBN numbers, map references and Coastguard details into the keyboard.

Sunday, a breezy cruise on local waters.

I have need of a boat with bigger storage capacity for this summer, so for some time I have had a new toy on order. This morning, it finally arrived! With childlike glee, I retrieved it from the local shop. All good.

It is very long and very orange. It has the number ‘34′ written inside. I am very much looking forward to getting it wet tomorrow!

Many thanks to Simon and his staff for handling the order.