South West Sea Kayaking

I have been lucky enough to paddle to the glorious island of Lundy twice. However, both of my trips have seen the weather turn bad when I’ve arrived; meaning that it wasn’t safe to cross the tides back to the mainland of north Devon. Both times I’ve had to return - rather ignominiously - with my kayak strapped to the deck of the tourist boat.

This past weekend saw remarkable weather for later September; sunshine, high pressure and no wind. Eight of us planned to visit Lundy and try to break The Curse!

Heather and I woke at 5 am after a night sleeping in the car at Lee Bay. The other six had arrived in the night and were also dotted around the car park, asleep; everyone was in the right place at the right time, for once!

Under a sliver of moon, we loaded up the kayaks and launched at 6.30 am. Bathed in pink pre-dawn light, we paddled out into the tide stream and set course for Lundy, 21 miles offshore but nowhere to be seen. A basking shark cruised upstream past us, hoovering up plankton; and then the sun rose over Exmoor, a crimson fireball.

We only spotted Lundy when we were just four miles off; even though I know the place well, the sheer granite cliffs were still a surprise as the haze cleared to reveal them. Due to relatively mild tides, the crossing had taken longer than usual (despite a very strong group) and we stepped ashore after 4 hours and 45 minutes afloat. It was good to be back …

A few of us escaped work early for a paddle at Studland Bay last night. The sunny weather we’d enjoyed all week abruptly vanished as soon as we arrived; strong winds whipped up choppy surf and made the ride out to see the tide races at Old Harry Rocks fairly lively. We all retreated to the beach and did a spot of surfing, as well as some (unscheduled) rescue practice.

Fingers crossed that the weather will be better for the weekend, when we head to north Devon in order to gaze across the waters towards Lundy Island …

Useless trivia: this blog is highly rated by fans of Seth Lakeman.

I tested two shiney toys out, early this morning.

The silly photos should give you a clue as to what the first toy was; I just spent a sum equivalent to the economy of a small Latin American nation on a fisheye lens for my camera. Expect to see lots of these gimmicky pictures, until the novelty wears off. It’s a safe bet that it will wear off for you the viewer long before it wears off for me …

The second toy was a PH Capella 167. This rather garish red and yellow boat was loaned to us by PH Kayaks, rather convenient really given that my PH Cetus is still far away up in the far north of Scotland, kindly being looked after by Cailean Macleod. The Capella has already been taken out to St Kilda and Brittany by my wife* during August, but this was my first try in the glass version of this classic jack-of-all-trades design. All good, I enjoyed taking it for a lively spot of surfing in the reefs and tide races around Old Harry Rocks. I even managed not to break it, something I have an unfortunate habit of doing with borrowed property.

PH apparently have a big backlog of custom kayak orders and can’t keep up with demand, so non-custom models of the Capella 167 are now being manufactured in Europe to maintain availability for those who want their sea kayak now. PH say they are very happy with the construction quality and indeed, we couldn’t spot any issues with our loaned boat (apart from the colour scheme). So, expect to keep seeing pics of the garish red boat for as long as we can avoid/ignore PH’s calls and emails asking for it back …

By the way, if anyone fancies a quick Dorset test drive, drop me an email - markATukriversguidebookDOTcoDOTuk.

*Heather keeps promising to do some ‘guest blogging’ and post here about her exotic summer trips. Watch this space.

On the final morning before I left the Scottish coast, I woke before dawn for a call of nature. Having done my business, I took this photo from my tent flap. These chaps had kept me awake with their mournful wailing over three nights, indeed managing to drown out the noise of more than one storm. 

That was nearly a month ago. Despite such an active summer, I’ve been outrageously lazy and inactive since my return. In one whole month, I’ve managed to achieve a small bit of whitewater paddling, a smidgeon of running and an awful lot of lounging on the sofa eating chocolate. I haven’t paddled on the sea at all since returning to work! Part of the reason lies in the fact that this is always the busiest part of my generally rather busy working year, but there is much more to it than that. I’ve experienced this phenomenon before. You come home from a big trip where you’ve pushed yourself hard day after day after day; but once you’re back in reality, it’s oddly tough to motivate yourself to do anything at all.

But I’m going paddling on the sea, first thing tomorrow morning. All good.

This hirsute chappie lives on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula, up in Scotland. The lighthouse behind denotes the most westerly point on Britain’s mainland, just a few miles further west than Cornwall’s ineffable Land’s End. Arriving at the lighthouse at a glorious sunset after a headbanging 30 mile slog into a headwind was certainly one of the highlights of my summer trip.

Anyway, a few snippets of news/trivia …

There is a detailed review of South West Sea Kayaking in the latest edition of Ocean Paddler Magazine. It focuses heavily on the lack of info about local transport in the book (here you go, OP) and also seems unaware that the book covers the entire south west coast (as opposed to selected highlights), but on the whole it’s generously positive - thanks OP!

Many thanks to Steve Beith who organised the ‘Blue Moon Paddle’ last weekend, a very civilised get-together of sea kayakers in Hampshire. Regrettably, I forgot to take my camera - so you’ll have to take my word for it, that we paddled in the only good weather of the entire summer. In the evening, the paddlers attending were polite enough to sit through a talk about my work on South West Sea Kayaking without yawning too loudly.

All good.