Last summer I had a paddling overnight adventure. I’d not forgotten the beautiful night nav by sea kayak in October 2021 but the company hadn’t run that again. They did, however, have a slightly bigger adventure available and I thought I might do that. We’d have a night paddle by kayak, bivvy in the woods and get up early for a sunrise SUP.
Although it was only one night, barely twelve hours, I decided to make a weekend of it by camping down that way, at Corfe Castle. I put my tent up on Friday afternoon, under a blazing sun, and then went to Studland for a sea swim to cool down and dinner at the pub. What with joining boat club, I didn’t have time for my twice-weekly lido swims in 2023, let alone regular sea swims. I was also back at both Rangers and Brownies for the first time since March 2020, which meant I was often busy three or four evenings a week. I think I only managed two sea swims and they were both during camping weekends. This was nice and cooling and I went to the Bankes Arms for a cheese baguette afterwards. They’re always served warm and with an incredible amount of cheese and while I enjoyed it, as I walked back to Middle Beach car park, I began to wonder if I’d regret it once I was out on the water.
That wasn’t for some time. We had to collect the rest of our group – four of us plus an instructor. We all had to get changed, pack up our overnight stuff and take it down to the beach hut and then get acquainted with the sea kayaks and the spraydecks so the epic cheese had settled quite nicely by the time we headed out.
We followed the usual route, staying fairly close to the beach and the cliffs, learning to handle the kayaks as we went. It was July rather than October so the sun stayed up a lot longer this time – we had golden evening sun shining on the cliffs instead of a lavender sky as we made our way out. When we reached Old Harry, we did something we’ve never done before. Instead of landing on it or paddling through a gap in it, we went round it. There are some interesting tidal things happening beyond Harry and his crumbled wife so it was a surprise to keep paddling. It was bouncy – I don’t quite know how to describe that as well as the surface bouncing up and down, I really got the feeling that the entire sea, right down to the mud on the bottom, was bouncing up and down. I wasn’t just on the surface. I was one with the entire ocean. And I was unafraid! I was acutely aware of how recently I would have been frightened of a sea this rough. But I turned my kayak’s nose into the waves and bobbed up and down while the instructor and the rest of the group caught up.
Then we rounded Old Harry to the relative shelter of of the water immediately behind the cliff feature. We regrouped here and then the plan was to paddle back to Studland through the narrow gap at the base of the largest chunk of headland. That was fun – it’s narrow enough that you need to hold the paddle vertical but you also need it in the water to make sure you go through at the right angle and don’t get tipped over. At this point, I’m reasonably confident that I can do it but not 1000% confident. My long thin boat definitely wobbled a bit and then I was through.
We landed on the gravel on the other side and climbed out to see the sun setting over Poole and Bournemouth. It took us a minute to realise the tide was racing in and that we had to run back and pull the kayaks further up twice or risk being stranded overnight at the foot on an unclimbable cliff.
By the time we got back on board and set out for home, the sky was turning purple. Not quite dark enough to need the headtorches but dark enough to say that we were doing a night kayak. We packed the kayaks back again into the beach hut, collected our overnight bags and our instructor led us away down the beach to the secret bit of woodland where they do their bushcraft activities. It’s a little further north, behind the beach huts and have a stream running through it. The boys camped on one side, the girls on the other and the instructor lit the tiniest fire I’ve ever seen to make hot chocolate before bed. It was the first time I’d ever slept in a bivvy bag and it’s going to be the last.
In theory, it’s a waterproof bag that you put your sleeping bag in. The internet disagrees on whether you should put the sleeping mat in there too. Having spent a night with a mat and a sleeping bag in the bivvy bag, I’m firmly on team mat out. That bivvy bag was stretched so tight it was like sleeping in a coffin, if a coffin had half the height of the usual ones. The only good thing I can say for it was that it kept the sand off my mat. Next time I’ll take a groundsheet or a one-man tent.
We draped our wet kayaking stuff on the trees and the remains of the brick walls and slept – or didn’t – for a couple of hours. We were planning to be up at 4am for a sunrise SUP. Actually, we were all up at least ten minutes before the instructor’s alarm because a badger came and disturbed the camp. I heard something rustling in the woods to my left, something that got louder and closer and I knew it was a creature but in the dark, in the woods, a rustle suddenly becomes something much scarier. It was a relief to see its black and white face in the hint of light between the tree as it ran straight across the campsite.
4am is an ungodly time to be getting up, especially if you’re packing up camp rather than leaving it for later, and then putting on a damp wetsuit and wet neoprene socks. We stumbled through the woods, carrying our overnight bags which we stowed back in the beach hut and pulled out paddleboards for the next bit of the adventure. Not inflatable ones – these were heavy foam ones. Sturdy ones, I guess. We packed a couple of bags of breakfast things and went out on the water.
I was hoping today was the day I’d learn to stand up on the board but it wasn’t to be. That was fine. This was a pleasant morning paddle, not a lesson or a competition. We paddled south and out to sea, where the sun was peeking over the horizon. I’ve got some great photos of the group silhouetted against the sky, a couple of sunrise selfies and so on. It was only the second time I’d SUPd with anyone else and this time it was really chilled, just a little group staying more or less within the instructor’s field of vision, watching the view, not going anywhere in particular or achieving anything other than just being there to see the colours.
Or were we? Once the sun was up and the vibrant colours of sunrise were starting to fade away, we paddled across to South Beach, deserted at this time in the morning, where our instructor produced a little gas stove, a frying pan, a packet of wraps and a packet of sausages. I don’t eat sausages myself but they smell amazing on a quiet beach at ouch o’clock in the morning. I think I’d had the sense to bring a snack with me – can’t remember what it was right now but I’m pretty sure I was sprawled in the sand smelling the sausages and eating something. I definitely had a drink. It was early enough that I needed some sugar if I was going to do something physical.
We packed the much lighter bag up to paddle back and now we did have a little lesson. Specifically, we were going to stand up, shuffle backwards and put our weight on the back of the board and try to swing the nose around with a foot further up. I was never going to do that, because I can’t stand up and it doesn’t really work when you’re sitting. I’ve seen people do this kind of move on skateboards but not on a paddleboard. Obviously, a few people fell in. And then tried again and fell in again. The frying pan in its drybag fell in at one point and that got rescued far quicker than the paddler – to be fair, the paddler doesn’t need rescuing because they’re not inanimate lumps of heavy metal.
We got back, dragged the boards back over a lot more sand than had been there when we set out, and collected our overnight stuff. Back at HQ in the car park, we got dressed into proper dry clothes for the first time in.. about twelve hours. It had felt like a lot longer than that. We threw our wet stuff back into our cars and had hot chocolate back at HQ. No one really seemed to want to leave. I can’t remember what time we started on Friday but I was back in my tent five miles up the road by 8.30am.
This is the very definition of a microadventure. Had this been on a weekday – and had my job been a bit closer – I absolutely could have squeezed it in between 5pm and 9am. It’s a lot to fit in – seeing the sunset by kayak, sleeping in the woods, seeing the sunrise by SUP, frying breakfast on the beach, hot chocolate and still finished, theoretically, in time to get to the office. Of course, I then spent the entire morning napping in my tent because between the badger, the early start and the bivvy-coffin, I don’t think I slept at all but that’s what weekends are for, right? Snoozing in a warm tent, taking the steam train down to the beach and having an ice cream?
Bumblebee Paddles 