Today was another big step on my journey to kayaking instructor, a journey I never thought I’d even be on a year ago. I faced my biggest demon and somehow I don’t yet feel as proud of it as I should.
Let’s run through the backstory. I took up kayaking semi-regularly back in 2018 or 2019 when I bought an inflatable kayak. I went out with the experts to practice and somehow decided this was my thing. Ever since I was a student, I’ve been wanting to make more use of Poole Harbour but I went for the more obvious sailing and discovered that was not my thing. Last summer I did my Discover and Explore Awards and spent a few months wondering how to “take it further”. In November, I decided that was becoming an instructor, with the catch that I was terrified of being upside down in cold water so in March I drove all the way to Reading for a one-hour pool session when I practiced capsizing and brace strokes. Then I started sea swimming to get used to being in the water rather than on it. In fact, I’ve finally made it an actual series: Journey to Paddlesport Instructor.
And that takes us to today.
With a heatwave coming up, I decided I’d go out for another sea kayaking session, with the one and only goal of doing my capsize and escape at last. I’ve done the sea kayaking introduction at least twice before. In September, I was far too scared. In March it was far too cold. But if I’m ever going to find the sea an acceptable temperature, it was going to be today.
I was slightly scuppered by spraining my ankle on Friday morning. I spent Friday in pain and Saturday RICE-ing for all I was worth but I was surprised that by the evening, I was beginning to feel like I might be able to kayak after all. Trouble was, I’d emailed the company on Saturday morning to say I couldn’t come. I hadn’t had a reply. Maybe they don’t look at their emails outside of the working week. In that case, would Kyle be standing outside the hut waiting for me? I thought about it for a long time and I decided I’d go down and find out. If he was expecting me, I’d go after all. If he wasn’t, I’d go down to the other beach and meet my flock for a sea swim. While I was in the car park, I finally got the response – it was too late to cancel and maybe I could send someone to take my place? Ok, Kyle was waiting for me and if I was careful getting on and off the water, my ankle could probably manage the rest.
I got into my neoprene socks without screaming in too much agony, got into my wetsuit and and was given a buoyancy aid and spraydeck. There was supposed to be three of us plus Kyle but our third never turned up – forgot, got caught in grockle traffic or just sprained an ankle? Anyway, if I hadn’t turned up, poor Chris would have been out on his own. I limped my kayak down to the shore and we went through the usual “how to get in”, “how to adjust the footrest”, “how to put the spray deck on”, “how to pop the spraydeck off” and then we made our way into the water. It was low tide so most of the rocks I was nervous of stumbling on were nice and visible. Unfortunately, so was a solid foot of stinking seaweedy stuff as we waded out deep enough to launch. On the shore, I’d put my spraydeck on all by myself for the first time, so I’d had a good start to the trip. It took a bit more effort to get in the boat and I squawked as my bad ankle got crushed for half a second between my boat and Kyle’s but once I was aboard, I got the spraydeck on all by myself for the second time. I get it on at the back but when I lean forward to secure the front, the back always pops off. Sometimes I can get most of it on long enough to think I’ve done it but the first breath pops the back again. It’s deeply frustrating to be explaining your ambitions to be a kayaking instructor while being utterly unable to put a spraydeck on by yourself.
For a beautiful day during the Great British Heatwave, it was surprisingly breezy and the sea was rougher than I’d expected. In fact, it was rougher and windier than when I’d been kayaking on Wimbleball last month, on that Saturday when “everything’s cancelled except kayak hire” and even that had to be kept within very narrow boundaries. I’d thought at the time that it didn’t strike me as particularly windy or particularly rough and here we were on worse and neither Kyle nor the instructors for the sit-on-top groups had thought it worthy of mentioning.
We did the little game of piloting the 17-foot kayaks between the two rocks that poke out of the water at certain tides. I can never find them when I’m out by myself but I’m coming from a different beach and maybe by the time I get this far down, I’m too far out to see them, or to see them from the right angle.
Now. Kyle always seems to do the sea kayak half-day trips. This was my third introduction and I’d also done the night nav so he now recognises me and he knows my ambitions and he likes to test me. “You want to be an instructor – tell me, what advice do you have for good forward paddling?”. It sort of feels like I’m in a spontaneous exam but on the other hand, it’s probably good for me, and good for me to do it under paddling circumstances so I answered as best I could. Then Chris asked if there were any weird tides around here. Kyle said it was a great question and immediately referred it to me.
We paddled out to Old Harry Rocks. Chris seems to be by way of being a geography teacher so he’s well aware of the rocks as an example of every kind of coastal feature wedged into one small headland but he’s never seen it up close and certainly never from this angle. We’d paddled along the cliffs from Studland where you can really see what a chalk cliff looks like – it’s made up of squarish blocks (I have no idea how cracks like that form) and the bottoms are quite badly undercut in places and you can see exactly why these might collapse in bad weather, or just because they felt like it – and then round the corner and there’s Old Harry. From above, it’s not quite so obvious how big St Lucas’ Leap – the gap between the headland and the jutting-out rocks – actually is. From here it’s clear that only Superman could leap it.
It was swarming with paddlers – there were two sit-on-top groups with us who’d set out before us, while we were waiting for our third and while we dragged the kayaks down and learned how to use them, and a group of paddleboarders and the tide was low enough to land on the rocks. Still high enough for us to paddle through the Leap, as long as we were a bit careful.
I’ve been through before. This was where I capsized some six times the first time I came out and we also came through on the night nav. Studland Bay is very sheltered and once we’d got to South Beach, that choppy sea had become a millpond. Now it got rough again. Not long ago, I’d have been sufficiently terrified to try to refuse to go. Back on the night nav, last September, I whimpered and yelped my way round here, convinced I’d capsize in the dark. Today – well, skills and confidence. Skills and confidence. I could keep the boat upright no problem. I could even take my hands off the paddle to take photos, although that was the point at which Chris always bumped into me, while my attention was elsewhere and my paddle laid across the deck.
We paddled a little way west, through an arch in another jutting-out bit of rock and then between two of the Pinnacles and the cliffs. You have to be careful here – the sea gets particularly rough in these narrow gaps and there are rocks just below the surface that you have to avoid. We hung out for a while just beyond that, just to enjoy bouncing gently up and down and for Kyle to test our abilities a litle further. We’d found two plastic kids’ footballs floating in the sea and so naturally, we’d fished them out. Kyle had one stuffed into his spraydeck and he was going to deposit the other in the sit-on-top of the other instructor when they caught up with us. In the meantime, can we keep upright and also catch a ball? No. I could keep upright but it meant missing the ball, which wasn’t quite in line anyway.
We headed back outside of the Pinnacles, through a different arch in Old Harry and bobbed around in a nook of the formation I didn’t know existed. We were near the tidal race and Kyle was going to check it out while we tried not to get smashed into the cliffs.
From here, you could see Old Harry’s Wife, a sea stump created when a stack collapsed. I know she exists but I’ve never seen her. I thought she’d be little more than a squarish platform but no, the Wife is a spindly little thing that looks like someone’s first attempt to carve a wooden boat with a blunt knife.
It was a bit on the rough side for us and with too many rocks too exposed but we did get to kayak carefully around Old Harry himself, the tall stack at the far end of the feature. Then we made our last interesting experiment and left the bouncy little private bay via a passageway barely any wider than the boats, where we had to use our hands rather than our paddles to help ourselves through. You don’t get a lot of time to examine the rocks here but they’re riddled with fossils, or maybe with barnacles. It’s just shells and shapes, no chalk visible. And then we were back in sheltered Studland Bay with all the paddleboarders, who – quite rightly – had not gone through Old Harry to the bouncy water beyond.
I was beyond proud of myself. I’d been comfortable out there where it was rough. Three trips ago, I’d been petrified. I’d been scared today – my instinct had been “are you kidding, I can’t do that” but I’d gone through and immediately found I was comfortable. And I was incredibly proud of myself for being so comfortable. In fact, I’d done some ludicrous Disney-villain cackles of glee.
We had a nice chilled paddle back towards the beach with one major stop. I wanted to slay my last demon: the capsize and escape. I’d done it in a pool. I’d been swimming in the sea. I still have some swimming to do but this seemed like an unmissable opportunity. If I couldn’t voluntarily capsize and escape in this weather, when could I do it?
I handed my sunglasses and paddle to Kyle and my GoPro to Chris and then took a deep breath and before I could chicken out, I turned the kayak over.
The film says I was underwater for less than three seconds. I found my pull loop and half-fell half-swam out of the kayak and found the surface – the trouble with being underneath the kayak is reaching the surface without just swimming into the boat. I clung onto it and I think I just panted with my eyes squeezed tightly closed. I got the kayak turned back the right way up by myself – I think – and then Kyle emptied it and got me back in. That was a bit confusing. I had to swim along my boat and then he wanted me on the middle of his, so I let go of mine and swam instead of trying to hold on, then he actually wanted me on the front so I swam there instead. Then I hooked my good ankle into the cockpit of my kayak and Kyle hauled me up by the back of my buoyancy aid. It was the first time I’ve ever been in the water with a buoyancy aid on and I did take a moment to be astonished at how buoyant the things actually are.
I couldn’t quite get the spraydeck back on again. I don’t know if my hands were shaking a bit or if it was not having my sunglasses on – the boat is very bright green and it made everything else look very pink. Chris had a go as well – he was hoping to figure out how to roll with a demonstration from an instructor who remained upright. It didn’t work but he managed to escape and get back in all by himself.
By then we were less than fifty metres from the slipway. The tide had come in, so we were less seaweedy but the awkward rocks had vanished and the waves were smashing the kayak gently against the defences and later, against my legs. Kyle gave me a hand out so I didn’t slip on my bad ankle and break it altogether.
And that was it! I’d survived some rougher seas, I’d had some interesting explorations around Old Harry and I’d conquered the capsize. I’d basically done another tourist trip but I think it’s a big step on my instructor journey.
Speaking of which, I can see my instructing future now:
My Division part-owns a boathouse. I know of the boathouse but I’ve never used it for boating, only for summer barbecue and games evenings. Two weeks ago, I went to do a fencing session with a Ranger group in the other half of the Division and they mentioned that they were canoeing on the boathouse the following week. I invited myself along and I chatted to the instructor while we were out paddling – in kayaks, it turns out. She holds the Coach Award and she has three assistants who are unqualified and crying out for more hands to give them a bit of breathing room. I’ll be joining their ranks, although not until next year. The boathouse only operates during the school summer term. Obviously the coach has to be in charge at every session but then at least one of the three assistants also has to be available so the more the merrier.
She’d also like her unqualified assistants to do their Foundation Safety & Rescue Training and if she can get six of us together, she can get someone in to do it specifically for us at a reduced rate. That’ll hopefully be in the autumn. I’ve been looking at a course in August but the cost of it will more than double if I have to buy my own safety & rescue kit. If I do it with the boathouse, I can hopefully just use theirs, which is what I’d be using for running my sessions anyway. Then I can do Instructor in the spring. That means I’ll be qualified to run sessions without the Coach but kind of under her supervision. And I can just see that next I’ll want to do Coach. But for now, FSRT is looming in my future and I’m going to be a watersports instructor and that’s very exciting.