TXL • Packraft Sailing Poole Harbour

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Anfibio TXL Index Page
See also: Sailing Across Poole Harbour (IK)

Of all the zones in all the world…

Holy moly, end of May and first paddle of the year? It’s been a busy winter and the arm’s been playing up so time to break in with an easy packraft across a back corner of Poole Harbour, our locale for the summer.
Sailing Russel Quay back to Wareham with the tide and the wind sounded like a good one – a mile’s walk + 5 on the water. Although it clashes with our hitherto pristine eco credentials, we have two cars down here, so we leave one in town and the other at Arne.

Teetering on the edge of Open Access land.

This whole area south of the Harbour is a largely undeveloped heathland with rare wildlife and part of an RSPB ‘super reserve’. On the day the famous BBC Springwatch crew were installed for a fortnight or more, motion sensing cameras probing various nests and burrows. Thick power cables lined our track leading up north to the put in near long gone Russel Quay. I’m not fully sure it was a right of way. Dodging irate English Nimbies is going to take some practice after the freedom of the Scottish northwest coast we became accustomed to.
But ironically this area also has the biggest knot of land-based oil wells in western Europe. They’re the small, nodding donkey type, not towering rigs but a couple of months ago one of the pipelines sprung a leak in Ower Bay near the processing plant on the less accessible south shore. Luckily it wasn’t an Exxon Valdez event and at higher tides there could be some good packboat exploring in this inlet-rich area. It’s all we’ll have here bar the more exposed Jurassic Coast.

Not exactly the Summer isles, but it’ll have to do. You don’t get a May week of 20°C+ and full sun up there.
I try to remember what to do and in what order.
Note the water skier. With my typical ‘let’s-wing-it’ lack of due diligence, we’d stumbled on one of the few ‘PWC’ zones on Poole Harbour. (The link’s map is missing but may be what’s at the top of the page.)
Well, stood at the shore it looked like a good north-easterly for a while.
OMG, more menacing water-hoons! It’s a bank holiday Sunday and turns out we were right on their sole permitted skiing corridor. RTFM!
Once on the water there’s barely enough wind to blow out a scented candle from Purbeck Handicrafts.
But according to the GPS, paddling most of the time we did momentarily zip along with the tide.
As it is, tides in the Harbour have quite a prolonged high water period which will be useful. This is a spring tide in a few days.
Newbie on Poole Harbour back in 2005.
Gumo Safari, my very first IK.
We should have just cruised close to the shore where motorboats fear to tread. Next time we’ll know.
Near Gigger’s Island we pass a motionless hardsheller, like a heron deep in thought.
Without my GPS, first time finding the Frome river entrance would have been tricky.
Soon impenetrable reeds line the banks, our speed drops and pot-bellied boaters cruise by at 4 knots.
I can see this 2.5-mile river stretch might soon become a chore at the end of a long paddle and an ill tide.
Never get out of the boat? We couldn’t if we tried, but near the river mouth there’s a small jetty and a track back to town. Good to know but with an IK, I’ll need some wheels.

That night we catch a bit of Springwatch on the iPlayer but, as expected, I can stomach the hyper-saturated, happy-clappy ‘Phil & Holly of Wildlife’ for only so long. It’s the final finale of Succession – what are we waiting for!?
A probing bike recce of the south shore is needed. More Poole Harbouring to come.

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