If you’ve read my posts about my previous kayaking adventures, you may have noticed I have something of a love-hate relationship with the sport. I liiiike it… but I’m not very good at it and I don’t like the sea. Why not use rivers and lakes for your early kayaking experiments instead of leaping straight into sea kayaking? Because for me, the sea is right there!
Also, why am I doing this at all? Because I do like kayaking but mostly because I bought an inflatable kayak from Lidl (yes, Lidl, shut up. You know what that middle aisle’s like) and I’m too chicken to go out in it. I thought I’d have a refresher on kayaking and Studland Bay. I don’t know much about the sea but I know it’s strong and powerful and dangerous and I don’t want to do anything stupid with my blow-up boat.
The first thing about today was the wetsuit. Wetsuits can be horrendous and because I’m chunkier around the middle than people immediately think, clothes other people give me are always too small. But this one fitted so nicely and comfortably that I want one of my own. Legs are a bit long but that’s my fault for being too round for my height. I added my own rash vest underneath for sun protection and then we were given kayaking jackets and buoyancy aids, so I had more layers on than I’ve worn in months, if not years. Plus a helmet in case a cliff crumbles on us.
We set off from Middle Beach at Studland. Knoll Beach, to the north is the touristy-families-golden-sand beach, the nudist beach is further north still and South Beach is the tiny narrow more-popular-than-it-looks beach. We kept fairly close to the shoreline, following it round rather than ploughing straight across Studland Bay. It was high tide and there were people paddling, little more than knee deep, an astonishing distance out from the beach. The water’s shallower around the edges but it seems to take a while to get deep. I know Poole Harbour’s average depth is just 48cm but we’re outside the harbour here – the north tip of Studland is the southern end of the very narrow harbour entrance.
I don’t think there was any point today when we were in water even waist-deep. That eases quite a few of my kayaking fears, although I’m not taking the thing out on my own unless it’s at least as calm as it was today. In fact, we scraped the bottom with our paddles a couple of times and when we returned, we ran aground at least fifty metres off the beach.
But we’re not returning yet.
I was paired with Martin, who was here with his daughter and her other half for his birthday present. His daughter is about my age so I guess Martin is about my dad’s age. Happy birthday, we’re going to put you in a kayak with someone who 100% expects to get tipped out and is actually more nervous than she realises.
Martin was a good partner. His seat kept slipping so he paddled nearly lying down and I got my buoyancy aid and seat back tangled up, which made the first little while very uncomfortable. I was so sure there was a way to paddle that didn’t hurt back, stomach, legs and feet all at once. Yeah, untangle all the layers behind you. I settled down after a while and it turns out we’re reasonably strong and fast paddlers – but with no steering control. I swear, we tacked all the way to Old Harry, great big zigzags across the bay, literally unable to paddle in a straight line.
Along the way we saw chalk cliffs with layers and patches of flint, remains of WWII defences, oystercatchers and their chicks, an egret and the usual collection of gulls. Studland Bay has recently been made a Marine Conservation Zone, mostly because the underwater seagrass meadows are home to some fairly rare seahorses. Mostly they’re looking to enforce the 5-knot speed limit in the bay and install moorings so people don’t drop anchor onto the seahorses’ heads. Our guide looked for the seahorses’ favourite eelgrass but we didn’t find any, or any seahorses either.
We landed on the stony “beach” at the foot of Old Harry, accessible only by watercraft. Many a time I’ve stood on the headland and watched kayakers scramble around the rock. I’ve paddle through the gap too. Not today. One, you’d need to drag your kayak through the shallows and two, it’s choppy outside the sheltered bay. We’d definitely capsize. That’s where it happened last time.
We only had five or ten minutes on Old Harry, just long enough for a quick geology lesson for the tourists among us. Old Harry is a chalk headland. Erosion wears a hole into a crack into a cave which collapses to make a stack which then collapses to make a stump. Look it up. It’ll be illustrated with a picture of Old Harry, it’s literally a textbook example of how coastal erosion happens.
The paddle back was quicker. Both Martin and I sorted out our seats, the steering issue seemed to fix itself and I felt I wanted to race Martin’s daughter and son-in-law who also seemed to want to race Martin. Not that any of us said it but we flew across that water, leaving the guide and the other three kayaks long behind.
During this bit, I paused for photos a few times and then decided it was easier to leave the camera switched on than try to get the zoom into the special tunnel on the waterproof case every time I wanted a quick snap. This camera has a touchscreen and the touchscreen doesn’t know the difference between a finger tapping a photo and a droplet of water running down it. Hanging round my neck, it snapped away until the card filled up. The end effect is a bit budget-action-cam-esque.
We had to reign it in for the last bit. In under two hours, the beach had got busy and we had to navigate between pleasure cruisers, SUPs, swimmers, dogs, jet skis, inflatable dinghies and anything else you can picture in a sheltered bay on a really hot Sunday afternoon.
As I said, we ran aground. Martin pulled the boat onto the beach while I carried the paddles. Neoprene socks are lovely things for kayaking but not for dragging kayaks over stones. And that was about it. We dunked all the kit in a barrel of fresh water to wash the salt off it and, dry and dressed, I went off to the pub for a post-kayaking late lunch of a huge glass of fizzy sugar and a baguette with my week’s allocation of cheese sticking out of it.