studland bay | Inflatable Kayaks & Packrafts

A recent picture on BBC News of David Attenborough plugging his new Ocean film (or lamenting the ravaged state of the seas) reminded me that the dramatic Swanage Pinnacles and arches are just down the road. Having paddled just once last year, this would be a good first paddle to break in the shoulders. Last summer got nixed by a big book job, which was tackled full-on and did in my back for months and months – all compounded by finally catching the Covid (or so it felt).

As beach towels and brollies were getting unfurled, I unrolled my boat and left Swanage Bay (above) at the bottom of the tide. It would carry me north against a light breeze that would flip and get behind me around noon.
But setting off towards Ballard Point (left), the TXL was all over the place, handling like a 1psi vinyl bath toy. Had I forgotten how to paddle straight in the last year? I groped under the stern with the paddle to see if it clanked against the skeg. Either I missed it or it wasn’t there.

Back on the beach, sure enough – no skeg; probably dislodged while putting in. This happened once before, landing on a rocky ledge where the fore and aft of the shallow surf saw the skeg slip its mount. After that I wrapped it in hi-viz tape.
I couldn’t see how it had happened today on a smooth, sandy beach, but I spent the next 40 minutes wading up and down, juggling estimates of longshore drift with onshore breezes, but unsure exactly which of the 20 Swanage groynes I’d set off from. I finally accepted the skeg was MIA: some errant doggie must have snapped it up and rushed it back to its bemused owner. Drat – and I’d paid for 6 hours parking too! I went for a swim anyway, ate my sandwich, then packed up while a beaky seagull dryly observed the lambent folly of human endeavour.

*Look for my Skeg, ye Mighty, and despair!*

Heading back, I recognised a little sandcastle I’d passed on my way down to the shore, all of 2 hours ago. Was it here I put in? I wandered back to the nearby groyne on the off chance, but soon got distracted by the flash of some sunglasses. I waded round the end of the groyne to pick them up and there sat my skeg! Like a lost desert traveller expiring just one dune short of a palm-ringed oasis, my search had been one groyne short. Saved by a thoughtful beachcomber, I grabbed my skeg and left the shades: this show was back on the water ;-)

Don’t lose your skeg
The lack of tension, even once inflated, can dislodge an Anfibio skeg following a small fore and aft movement of the hull pressing on the sea- or riverbed. On a flowing river, skeg-free is not so bad and you might need the clearance anyway, but at sea you definitely want a skeg for good tracking. Here’s one solution.
• Stick something like a fat sharpie under the rear skeg patch to lift the fabric away from the hull; you don’t want to stab your packraft
• Make two incisions which line up with the hole at the back of the skeg
• Feed a reusable cable tie through the slits and leave it in place. The skeg will now be secure

Skeged up, the TXL sliced NE towards Ballards Point like a troupe of dolphins late for the ball. I was sitting on the optional floor inflata-mat, which stiffens the long hull, reducing drag).
Edging towards the Point, I could feel the boat slowing down against the eddy hooking back southwest into the bay (left; LW+3). Passing over the corner some clapotis (below) was jingling about, pushed up by the eddying current.

Once round the corner, with the wind and tide now behind me, I was expecting record speeds. As usual though, with a backwind you lose the ‘wind-in-your-face’ impression of speed, which can be quite dissatisfying. To my right, jet-skiers were thrashing about, making me feel uneasy. Paddling quietly along, it’s hard not to feel intimidated, far less any aquatic fraternity towards these wave-jumping motocrossers. The sooner they all go electric the happier we’ll all be. But either way, I bet they’re a blast to ride!

Up ahead rose the oddly nameless Jurassic fang, seen behind Attenborough at the top of the page. All the other outlying pinnacles hereabouts are flat-topped. When you work out the thin rib of chalk where they got DA to stand to get the shot, you’d hope there was an unseen safety line securely attached to Britain’s most treasured national. As I passed between the fang and the cliff wall, a gust shoved me through, and I saw later the GPS had hit a dizzying 9kph.

Beyond lay the first of the chalk arches which make this paddle so special, and why it got featured on the title page of my IK beginner’s guidebook (below). At the first small arch the wind bounced me back off the high walls, then whooshed me through the calcified portal like a popped cork. On the far side some paddle-boarders out of nearby Studland were taking a break on a tidal ledge.

With the tide about halfway in, I threaded the passable arches around Old Harry’s (above), while other paddle sports enthusiasts milled about at the geological wonder of it all and from the cliffs above, walkers looked down with envy.
Once round the corner and in the lee of Ballard Downs, all that remained was to head west for Studland South Beach and pull the plug.

With a bit of energy to spare and nothing to lose, at one point I put my head down and powered on to see ‘what she’ll do [mister]’. The GPS data log revealed a blip from a steady and sustainable 5kph to a limited-endurance 6kph, which would soon drain the batteries. Six kph must be the maximum hull speed of a TXL on near still and windless water. Better to save such efforts for unwanted offshore headwinds. Even then, looking at the data below, I’m again amazed what a portable raft which you can easily pack up and walk with anywhere will do on the open sea. ISuPs may be loads more popular, but to paraphrase former Met Police commissioner, Robert Mark, ‘I’m convinced packrafts are a major contribution to paddle sport adventures’.

On South Beach oiled-up heliophiles were laid out like seals. It reminded me of a radio doc about boredom I’d caught the previous evening. In an experiment, apparently 70% of males preferred to self-administer a light electric shock rather than sit still in an empty room for 15 minutes. They should give them a sun bed next time, but perhaps I’m missing the point.

I could have walked back the couple of miles over Ballard Downs to Swanage, but what with the time wasted on the skeg search-and-rescue mission, I didn’t want to risk getting back late to the parking before something terrible happened.

So I treated myself to the 20-minute open-top #50 bus ride back to town.

All together now:
We’re all goin‘ on a
Summer holi-day…’

I’ve done a few IK paddles in Southeast England between Rye and Portsmouth, but the Sussex and Hampshire coasts aren’t that inspiring. So it’s about time I started exploring the far more interesting and much more extensive Southwest Coast. From the Isle of Wight to Cornwall and back up to the Severn there are scores of inshore excursions possible in an inflatable. Just as in the far northwest where I mostly sea paddle, all you need is a fair tide and paddle-friendly winds, the latter a bit less rare down south.

In a blobby packraft? You cannot be serious!

So in the face of predicted moderate winds I cooked up a 50-km Jurassic overnighter from Weymouth to Swanage in Dorset. I’m pretty sure they opportunistically rebranded the plain old Purbeck or just ‘Dorset’ coast as the ‘Jurassic Coast‘ soon after that 1993 movie and haven’t looked back since.
Like much of the Southwest coast, the beaches and country lanes become a logjam of holidaymakers on a warm summer’s day. On the water, our paddle would pass below sections of cliffs a couple of miles long and take us to the famed landmarks of Lulworth Cove, Durdle Door arch (top of the page) and Dancing Ledge. We could even carry on back north past Old Harry’s Rocks and across Studland Bay right into Poole Harbour to catch out trains home.

Compared to using regular (solo) packrafts, my confidence in my TXL for sea paddling is a revelation. After all, it’s still just another blobby, single-chamber packraft. It must be a combination of the added size giving a kayak-like perception of security (as I found in my MRS Nomad), as well as the responsiveness and speed from a longer waterline and, I now recognise, the sometimes noticeable added glide from the Multimat floor. There’s also the fact that paddlechum Barry was up for the Dorset run in his similar MRS Nomad, making this untypical packraft outing less daunting.

Lulworth tides – all or nothing (of not much).

For some bathymetric reason – possibly the Atlantic tidal surge backing up in the Straits of Dover, plus hidden offshore shelves – the tides off the east Dorset coast are very odd: they can rise or drop all day, but have a range of just two metres, about as low as it gets in the UK. That ought to mean moderate ebb flows pushing up against prevailing westerlies, plus we were heading into neaps. And while often cliff-bound, if we stayed alert to escape routes we could easily bail and walk or climb out with our packrafts.

East of Lulworth Cove the Jurassic Coast‘s bucket & spade Babylon is interrupted by a 5-mile wide Danger Area – an army firing range. This was probably not one of UNESCO’s criteria for World Heritage status, but the SW coastal path also gets closed for a similar distance. Barry’s Reeds Almanac had a page or two on this (left), as well as useful tidal flow charts (drops to the west; rises east). I left it to Barry to call the ‘0800 DUCK!’ number, but imagined surely they’d leave the target practice to the off season. In fact they’re all it most of the time Mon–Fri, including an evening session 9pm to midnight: all we had to do was click this.

fishing.app – handy and similar toa Reeds Almanac but free

With a plan taking shape, I in turn bought a copy of Pesda’s South West Sea Kayaking in the hope of being alerted to local anomalies. I’m glad I did. It turned up with just hours to spare and identified that the run from Kimmeridge Bay round the Purbeck corner to Swanage was a grade up from the easy section from Weymouth. With headlands, submarine ledges and long lines of cliffs, without a foot recce I decided we may be better off skipping this bit.