The Club spent three days paddling in the Dartmouth area from 9 to 11 July.

Tudor, Richard H and Rob were the first to arrive at the campsite near Slapton in warm sunshine, and used the evening productively with a recce of the local pub. Tudor led the way across the footpaths based on his memory of the “virtual” trip he had previously made on the internet.

Fiona and David T arrived later in the evening.

Friday

We met a local paddler Phil at Dartmouth Canoe Club in the centre of Dartmouth, and launched at the slipway near the ferry. Phil provided lots of interesting stories concerning the local sites and history on the way to Blackpool Sands which was the lunch spot. There were plenty of rock-hopping opportunities, and Phil pointed out some of the best ones. He also took us to a more dubious feature – the “smelly waterfall”. The static caravan park located on the cliff directly above the waterfall may have been the cause of the whiffyness. There were some very large grey seals along the coast to Blackpool Sands which came close up to the kayaks and were impressive to watch. You wouldn’t have wanted to startle one of them in a small cave.

Blackpool Sands was relatively quiet when we arrived there for lunch and visited the café. After lunch we headed back to Dartmouth weaving through the rocks, with Phil taking us through an interesting rock corridor close to the get out. The sea was calm with the tide slightly against us on the way but with a bit of help from the wind.

Dinner was had at the Queens Head in Slapton which we found with no problem due to the previous evening’s recce. We headed back to the campsite to meet Liza and David arriving from London at 9.02pm – a full two minutes later than they planned. There was time for trip planning for the next day and a quick Frisbee session before settling down, hoping the tent was waterproof as the forecast rain came in and lasted until 7am the next morning.

Saturday

The plan for Saturday was Brixham to Warfleet, near Dartmouth, using a shuttle. We dropped a car off at the castle near Warfleet and used the higher ferry to get to the put in at the breakwater car park in Brixham. We got to the car park relatively early to bag some places which meant enough time for a coffee or tea. Local paddlers David J and Anita joined us meaning we had the benefit of local knowledge for a second day running, and that we had our full quota of ‘Davids’ – a total of three (J, P and T).

After watching a seal near the beach we set off at 10:30am around Berry Head avoiding the long lines of the fishermen who are usually stationed there. David J took the group off shore a kilometre or so as he had seen dolphins in the area before. Unfortunately the dolphins were absent that day but it was good to feel a few waves under the kayaks. There weren’t many seabirds around Berry Head either, although it is a renowned spot, but a couple of guillemots flew by and there some gannets and fulmars around.

From Berry Head on there was some entertaining rockhopping available including caves to explore.

At one point Rob distracted David P by pointing at some geological feature just as a large wave broke and pushed David towards the rocks. David put in a couple of essential support strokes and paddled quickly to safety avoiding being dashed on the rocks.

We stopped for lunch near Scabbacombe, as a mist descended, and sheltered under a rock. It got a bit chilly so Fiona organised a Frisbee game to get the blood flowing before carrying on to Warfleet. The next section also had some good rockhopping with more caves.

We paddled into the Dartmouth estuary via the Mew Stone, where there were some grey seals, and then passed the mermaid statue before landing at the small beach at Warfleet.

Overall, the trip was 18km and took 5hrs 50 mins, average speed 3.1kph (including the lunch stop), F2-3, with waves at a maximum of 0.5m (when offshore looking for the dolphins).

While the drivers headed back to Brixham to collect the cars, Richard and David collected tea and cakes from the tea room at Dartmouth Castle, with great views over the harbour entrance. Richard spotted Monty Halls (marine biologist and TV programme maker) arriving in a van with his family to go fishing and went over to had a chat.

We then went for dinner at the Start Bay Inn at Torcross for fish and chips, lucky enough to get a table indoors which also had great views out to sea.

Sunday

Unfortunately, both Fiona and Dave T were a bit under the weather over the weekend and they decided that it would be better to head back home rather than spend another day paddling. The forecast wasn’t that positive with rain and stiff winds. Those remaining chose, therefore, to paddle on the Dart from Totnes down tom Dittisham and back. We were up promptly in the morning to strike camp before the rain started and then headed to Totnes for a coffee and bacon roll before saying goodbye to Fiona and Dave as they carried on homewards.

We got on the water at 11:15am at Steamer Quay, about two hours before LW, and paddled down river with the flow passing three canoeists who also set out from Totnes. We went up the creek at Stoke Gabriel to the mill pond and considered getting out to explore, but the water was rapidly draining and there was a real risk of getting stranded. A local advised that we were “fine for next half hour” but then qualified it with “don’t quote me on that and I don’t know when tides change”, so we ignored his advice and went back to the main river. We got to Dittisham at about 12.45pm and had lunch trying to find shelter against the wall under the café.

We set off back to Dartmouth at 1.40pm, which was around LW, at the same time as the canoeists who seemed to be working to the same plan. The total journey was 22.5km in total and took 4 hrs 15mins, average speed 5.25kph and fastest 10.9kph.

We said our goodbyes and headed home to see the Euros final. Even England’s loss after the inevitable penalty shootout did not spoil a great weekend of paddling.

Many thanks to Fiona for organising the trip, and to Phil, David J and Anita for their company and local knowledge.

Six of us arrived at the Diving Museum car park, Browndown on the south coast near to Gosport on Saturday 1 May 2021. Jan had a new dry suit he was trying out on his first sea crossing:

After launching, we head to Gilkicker Point quite quickly with the flow. Then cross the channel for Portsmouth Harbour between fast moving yachts and eastwards over to Spit Sands Fort. This is one of four circular forts built in the Solent as part of the Napoleonic defences in the 1870s, and known as a Palmerston Fort. Palmerston Forts can be found along the south coast (eg the round Martello tower at Seaview) and on the Isle of Wight (eg Sandown Fort, which was used to pump fuel to France as part of the D-Day landings, and now a zoo). All the Solent forts are quite an amazing feat of engineering to be built in the middle of the Solent with no nearby land. All four forts were bought from the government in the 1980s and Spit Bank Fort is now a hotel. Last year they all went up for sale. So if you’re interested, you can put in an offer for Spit Bank Fort, in the region of £4m.

Although not able to land, we circumnavigate the 62.5m diameter fort before heading to a buoy that marks the site of the sinking of the Mary Rose. As you will know, the Mary Rose was the premier battleship of the 1640s, and one of the first to have broadside cannons. She sank while becalmed during a battle with the French in 1645, when a strong gust caused the ship to lean over and allow water in through the gun ports. That flooded the ship almost immediately and caused the brick oven and cannons to break loose. More than 345 sailors died, many caught up in the anti-boarding netting. The ship was raised in 1982 in one of the biggest marine salvage operations of its time. Although the ship itself is now in a museum in Portsmouth attracting 200,000 people a year, the buoy is a very poor memorial, with even some letters rubbed off.

From the Mary Rose buoy, we head in a south easterly direction crossing the main channel to Portsmouth Harbour, over to Horse Sands Fort. Unlike Spit Sands Fort, Horse Sands Fort is derelict, or in estate agent language “preserved in its original state”, and yours for only £750,000. It is also at the end of an chain of submerged anti-submarine concrete blocks, part of second world war defences. Apparently those serving on the forts during the second world war were deliberately chosen for their inability to swim, to avoid any attempt to escape. As if to underline the continuing strategic nature of the port at Portsmouth, we see a Royal Navy ship pass by.

After the obligatory circumnavigation of the Horse Sands Fort we head in a south westerly direction to No Man’s Fort, a 23 bedroom hotel with a helipad (yours for only £4.25m), almost identical to Horse Sands Fort.

After lunch at Seaview on the Isle of Wight, the tidal stream changes direction and we head north westerly across the shipping channel to North Sturbridge buoy in the middle of the Solent. The wind picks up further to F4 and it starts to rain heavily, being driven into our faces for about 15 mins. There’s nothing else to do except keep going and head back to the launch spot.

The sun comes out as we arrive back in Browndown and we have some homemade macaroons supplied by Cathy, to celebrate a successful trip across the Solent and with a few historical sites along the way.

Please see this pdf for more details.  We hope to upload a post – where the links can be click-able.

The weather looked reasonably good over the Christmas holiday period, so it was suggested that a paddle from Newhaven to Brighton on the Sunday after Christmas might be possible. Unfortunately Newhaven beach access was closed, and the tides didn’t really work that well for that trip. Instead it was decided to go to Seaford to launch then to paddle to Birling Gap for lunch, wait for the tide to turn and return to Seaford.

Although I was a bit sleepy still, I was able to drag my bones out of bed and head down to the south coast to meet up with my fellow experienced paddlers. We met up at the Seaford Martello Tower, with its rooftop cannon, next to a small café. This is one of numerous similar towers built along the south-eastern and eastern counties coastline to protect against a Napoleonic invasion. This one, the most westerly one in England, is now used as a museum. Wherever you paddle along the British coastline there are coastal defences to see. This year we’d already visited other Martello Towers at Sandgate and Hythe; the Maunsell army forts in the Thames Estuary (Red Sands Fort) and in the Medway, Darnet Fort, all with Rob Davis at South East Kayaking. We’d also seen numerous Palmerston Forts in our circumnavigation of the Isle of Wight at Easter this year.

The Seaford Martello Tower overlooks a pebble beach, with a steep bank down to the seashore. Waves breaking close to the shore meant that the launch might be interesting. As it turned out we were all able to launch quickly and without incident, only losing a water bottle in the process. As we set off the weather was cloudy but fine with F3 winds and 0.75m waves, with the occasional, and occasionally startling, 1m wave. We paddled around Seaford Head – part of which had collapsed into the sea two days earlier – passed the entrance to Cuckmere River with its complicated moving sand bars across the entrance, then along the stunning white cliffs of the Seven Sisters with the sun now shining and on to Birling Gap.

At Birling Gap, we all successfully landed through the surf only for some of us to get trashed by the surf while trying to get out of the kayaks. As you may know Birling Gap is a bit of a tourist venue, so we were able to provide quite some entertainment for the large group of Chinese tourists on the beach. I’m sure we got onto a lot of WeChat updates as a result too. Here’s how to do it properly:

And here’s how to do it improperly:

Having successfully got our boats ashore we were able to enjoy some lunch in the sunshine, before attempting the return trip. Seal launching from Birling Gap was easy and I’d like to think we got some respect back for that as it looked like we knew what we were doing, as opposed to (some of) our earlier landings.

On arrival back at the Martello Tower at Seaford, the waves looked entirely flat except right at the shoreline, where the waves suddenly rose up to 1m and broke immediately (see photo below). Although we didn’t realise that until we were ashore. So like lambs to the slaughter we all paddled in, carefully looking behind for the bigger sets, only to get dumped big time right on the shore. We all had the same experience: spray deck off and feet out for a quick exit, controlled paddling to close to the shoreline, then very quickly picked up by a huge wave and surfed in so rapidly to the beach that it caused a capsize. Ordinarily that wouldn’t have been an issue with boat and paddler on the shore, but here the back flow of the waves into the sea was immense and all of us lost our boats and we had to really fight to recover them and pull up the beach. Even after doing that some bigger waves caught the back end of the boats and sucked them back out. I don’t think I’ve landed in such a strong back flow as that. It was so strong it dislodged one of my splits and I had to go into the waves to recover that – another pretty hairy experience! Luckily this time the 25+ people at the café couldn’t see any of this as the pebble beach is so steep, so we didn’t get on any more social media feeds fortunately.

With an improbably large amount of pebbles and stones inside our kayaks and water shoes, we retreated to the café, exhausted from the physical effort of getting ourselves and the boats out of the surf. Reflecting on the experience, I realised that having your face dragged along a pebble beach under cold seawater was certainly one way to stop feeling sleepy, and actually to feel hugely energised: good times from bad times, as they say.

Although a challenging trip, it was a perfect safe learning environment for practicing surf landings, but we did lose some kit in the process: towline, sponge, hat, water bottle (nearly: split paddle). Please return these if you find them!