South West Sea Kayaking

I am actually mainly a whitewater paddler, as opposed to a sea paddler. I may be working on a guide to sea kayaking in the south west now, but several years ago I actually wrote the south west section of a white water guidebook to England! In order to take on working on the sea kayaking book, I told myself that I would cut right down on the whitewater paddling for 2007. This is quite a sacrifice for me, but not such a bad one when you bear in mind that due to the lack of rainfall, there is never any whitewater kayaking to be done in the south west through the summer months, anyway. At least, that’s how it’s meant to be …

It’s been raining heavily on most days for the past three weeks, totally exceptional June and July weather. In some parts of the north of England, there is serious and unprecedented flooding. The forecast for this weekend was for more heavy rain. With this forecast in mind, I spent much of last week trying to figure out where and how to do a worthwhile sea paddle (between rain squalls?). It took several days of this for the penny to drop. Three weeks of heavy rain, the rivers of the south west in spate. I was ignoring the signs, but it was blatantly clear that Someone was trying to tell me something.

This weekend, I left the sea kayak at home when I headed south west …

Thanks to Nick Burton for the photos and video.