I'd always thought that one day it would be interesting to kayak around Hayling Island. I also knew that it would be a very long paddle!
But there's nothing quite like a summer heatwave to provide the inspiration for such a trip.
And so I checked the tides to make sure I'd hopefully go with the flow, or at least not be going against it, and then set off anti-clockwise from Northney marina at 5.30pm, three hours after high tide.
The sunny paddle down Langstone harbour was Ok and I had slight tidal assistance of about 2mph which added to my regular kayaking speed of 3mph. My GPS unit was very helpful throughout the paddle because it confirmed my forward speed, and that is very important to know when you are at sea with tides and wind.
Exiting Langstone harbour at low tide, there is a vast sandbank that stretches a mile out to sea which you have to paddle around, and then I had a steady off-shore breeze to paddle against for the rest of the trip. As I entered Chichester harbour the tide was incoming but only by about 1mph. If I stopped paddling, the evening breeze would blow me gently SW, thus this finally northwards section of the paddle seemed to take the longest, particularly as I was starting to get tired by now. The sun set at 9.20pm and the last hour of the paddle was in darkness. I missed the turn up Sweare Deep because I couldn't see any lights up that channel, only the Emsworth lights ahead. But when my GPS said I was heading NE, I knew something wasn't right, so I got out my iPhone to see where I was on the mapping and had to backtrack nearly 600m, annoyed with myself that I'd added almost an extra mile to my already long journey!
In the end, I completed the 16 mile circuit in 5 hours, averaging 3.2mph, never paddling against the tides but going against the off-shore breeze for most of the time.
I carried plenty of snack bars and water which helped, but two things I would have liked to have had with me would have been my shower radio and my iPad mini (obviously in a waterproof case) so I could have seen my mapping in front of me in real time.
The best thing I took with me was my Garmin eTrex.
The thing I would have liked the most would have been a faster kayak!
