In the middle of August, Me (John Boy), Sarah, Mark and our friend Little Rob went sea kayaking around the Isle of Wight.
We started at Calshot on a sunny but windy Saturday Morning, paddled to Lepe then crossed the Solent over to the Isle of Wight. This crossing can be tricky due to traffic at the best of times, however we were trying to cross on the second weekend of Cowes Week! This meant we had to keep our witts about us to make sure we didn't get run down by sailing boats. We then paddled up to the needles and then round the corner to Freshwater bay, after 7 hours of paddling into the wind, we set up camp for our first night sleep.
The second day we headed from Freshwater bay around St Catherins point and up to Sandown beach. We had the wind behind us which gave us a much easier days paddling and a far greater average speed. Sandown was having a festival which was very nice and the whether was Beautiful and Sunny. We Chilled out on the beach for a few hours, had fish and chips and an ice cream. We then jumped back on the water to paddle around the most Easterly point of the Isle of Wight to St Helens beach and finished our 9 hour paddling day. This beach is by far the nicest place I have ever bivied out, I highly recommend a camping trip there.
The last day we paddled into the wind again, up to Cowes. This section was very scenic and another recommended Section for the Budding Sea Kayaker. We then crossed back over the Solent to Calshot. There was a good amount of Swell which made for an exciting/scary at times crossing. This finished up another 7 hour Paddling day and 23 hours of total paddling.
This was a superb trip around beautiful island and a brilliant intro to expedition sea kayaking. Great fun had by all!!
Video Coming soon.
John Boy
