Boscastle at its Best

The perfect paddling day was in prospect: clear blue sky and hardly any wind, with a bonus of soaring temperatures and a small swell making the remote coast of Boscastle in North Cornwall irresistible.

As I was fiddling about by the water’s edge folding the kayak trolley away in the front hatch, I was hailed by a guy in an inflatable (with hefty outboard) asking if he could get a replacement aerial in the area.  I pulled a bit of a long face because Boscastle is big on teashops and witchcraft museums, not chandlery stores. It turned out he was motoring right round the UK in his small craft, having set off from Southampton…..fab. Here he is, Alex Swarbrick.

Alex Swarbrick…..UK circumnavigator

Another inspirational character I have me on the water recently. On my last visit to Boscastle a few weeks ago.I passed someone who was attempting to SWIM round the UK.

Paddling out of Boscastle harbour always takes my breath away because you are thrust immediately into staggering coastal scenery. As was the case today you are unlikely to pass another craft or see anyone else apart from in the extreme distance on a clifftop.

Looking down the coast to Tintagel

I called in to the coastwatch tower on the radio to let them know my plans for the day and then, because the surface was about as flat as it gets at Boscastle, I headed straight out to sea. I must have passed tens of thousands of jellyfish, becoming even more concentrated along the tidal interfaces. Mostly Moon jellyfish with a couple of Compass and Purple jellyfish thrown in.

 

As I was looking down at the jellyfish I was startled by a large fish looming past ten feet beneath me; the first Sunfish I have ever spotted underwater!

I was confident I would see cetaceans because the sea was so smooth, and when I caught a glimpse of a flash of white as a Gannet twisted and dived a mile or two further out, I engaged top gear (economy, not sport…didn’t want to burn myself out too early in the day), and surged out towards them.

patrolling Gannet

The mini feeding frenzy of a dozen or so Gannets had fizzled out when I at last arrived on the scene, and the birds were sitting about on the surface with a sort of ‘too late, mate’ look. One which I am getting used to.

However by great good fortune I heard the puff of a number of porpoises nearby and was very pleased when a large scattered pod of about a dozen cruised past me. As usual they were aloof and not interested in me or my craft (unlike most offshore creatures) and went on their way. And as usual with porpoises, when I followed them at a respectful distance, they then pop up behind me exactly where I had been a few minutes ago. So I haul the kayak around and head off in the opposite direction, and they surface somewhere completely different. Part of the fun of wildlife observation from a kayak, although it might be called frustration. That is probably why nobody else (with any sense) does it.

Elusive Porpoise

I noticed that one porpoise had a unnatural looking pale patch on its side:

Patchy Porpoise

The porpoises moved off and I sauntered down the coast, with tidal assistance, towards the forboding headland of Tintagel island. This is usually a very nasty place and the scene of a bit of a bungle I made in terms of weather and swell planning a few years ago, when I could taste disaster. It is a prominent headland with vertical cliffs slabbing into the water, and they are pitch black to make them look even more fearful. As usual, headlands like this amplify wind, swell and tidal currents and even on a benign day conditions around the tip of the headland can be very hairy.

Tintagel Head

Fortunately today it was as threatening as the boating lake in Hyde Park (if there is one) and the hot sun and blue skies made everything as relaxed as it could be.

Another circling and plunging flock of gannets was a bit closer so I was hopeful I might get there before the ‘bus had left’ on this second occasion. Sport mode this time, forget about early burn out, I didn’t want those Gannets smirking at me again . As I sped towards the action I could see dark bodies splashing at the surface and when a couple of cetaceans breached completely I felt certain this was a pod of dolphins.

But I was just a minute too late, close enough to hear the last diving Gannet ‘thoomph’ into the water with an impressive splash. As I rolled up glistening with sweat and trying not to look flustered the Gannets were once again sat around silently just looking, and judging . Exactly the same individuals as before, I think.

And to my amazement it was the pod of porpoises that were leaping about splashing. One of the features of porpoises is that they just roll quietly at the surface and it is the hyperactive Common Dolphin that does all the splashing, but I suppose if they are on the hunt and have herded a shoal of fish to the surface they are entitled to get a bit fired up about the feast.

The whole lot of porpoises then paraded past, still with a sense of urgency. You can really hear the characteristic porpoise ‘puff’ clearly in this video.

 

 

By this time I was a couple of miles directly off Tintagel Head so turned towards land and paddled slowly in. I couldn’t believe my luck when the sharp fins of a pod of about eight Common Dolphins appeared directly in front of me. I sheared away to avoid startling them but piled on the power ( intelligent eco sport) in the hope that they might come over and bow ride. Unfortunately they didn’t and headed further offshore. I could hear them breathing and splashing long after they were lost to sight.

Common Dolphins

AS usual Tintagel island was crawling with loads of tourists that looked like ants (from long range) and I was glad I wasn’t on land. I called in to one of the sandy beaches at Bossiney for lunch, backed by water about as clear and as turquoise as it is possible to get in the UK.

Another sunfish was waving its fin about off Short island and I thought this would be my first chance to film one with the GoPro. But to my surprise it disappeared long before I got close. So I took a selfie instead.

The Lone Kayaker scrutinises the Horizon

Back at Boscastle Alex was just setting off for the stretch up the coast around Hartland Point to Ilfracombe, still minus his aerial. Good luck to him on the rest of his adventure.

I trolleyed back to the carpark past the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic.

Boscastle Museum of Witchcraft and Magic

 

 

 

Fun-loving Seal

This seal is just larking about. I’m fairly certain of this because I had been watching it closely for the previous half-an-hour. Or more accurately, it had been watching me.

As usual my very early start had paid off and I had the opportunity to observe the scattered group of Grey Seals without the disturbance of any other craft.

First chance to use the GoPro:

This particular, very pale seal, swam around the kayak for several minutes and then lost interest and cleared off.

As I paddled on another seal took up the batten and started to shadow me. I stopped to watch and it just cavorted about in a patch of bootlace seaweed, snorting, splashing and twisting round in the weed. When it surfaced, only a few feet from my kayak, it had the cheeky look of a puppy wanting someone to throw its ball. It kept eyeing me up sideways and then hurling itself into the water.

It was like a dog whose owner has just come back having been shut up all day.

There was no way that it wasn’t extremely excited, possibly because I was the first boat of the day on its patch with which it could interact.

This next clip which is not that easy to see shows the seal rolling itself in bootlace weed. I can’t think of any other reason to do this apart from just horsing around in excitement.

It then tucked in behind me as I paddled along, every so often bumping the bottom of my kayak or grabbing the rudder. Half of the time it was upside down and apparently just loving life.

Or maybe it was overexcited about the stunt which it was about to pull.

I stopped to watch the show as I have never been bumped about so much by any sea creature. In fact the only thing that has impacted my kayak before was a huge Basking Shark about eight years ago.

This seal is not only fun-loving, it would seem to be very clever. Look into its eyes and you can see a bit of friendly mischief, and the shove of its flipper is absolutely perfectly aimed to soak as much of me as possible:

 

 

I have cut out the expletive from the end of the video as the splash completely drenched my moderately expensive and completely unwaterproof camera.

As I was frantically trying to dry the camera with a pathetic little bit of soggy tissue I found in the bottom of my camera bag, the seal swam round to the front of my kayak for its Grand Finale.

To my total amazement it hauled itself out on the front of my boat with absolutely no sign of fear or hesitation. As it pumped with its tail to get further out of the water my kayak wobbled but my number one aim was to take a pic or two, although after a while I did try to reason with it that it was in danger of tipping me out.

Falling in would not be a problem because I use a sit-on-top kayak and can just climb back on, but I would not be happy about dunking my camera in the sea. I would then need a bit more than a soggy piece of kitchen towel to resurrect it.

The seal just would not leave me alone so I engaged top gear for the paddle back to the shore. This seemed to spur it on even more, but at last it gave up as I approached the town.

So it’s not just dolphins that seem to enjoy themselves so much.

 

Cardigan Bay Jumpers

video:

The Lone Kayaker is on a mission to bring you the best of the UK’s water-based wildlife, as seen from his kayak, and is quietly smug about his latest adventure. Put Love Island on pause. See what is going on in the REAL world.

The relentlessly tropical weather was continuing although a stiff easterly breeze was forecast for SW England (which didn’t actually materialise). On the spur of the moment I shoved a load of camping stuff in the car and headed off to a  tiny beach  in the middle of Cardigan Bay in west Wales. It was supposed to be still, sunny, and hot.

My main aim was to see some of the Cardigan Bay Bottlenose Dolphins. It was unlikely to happen as an encounter with dolphins is always hit-and-miss, but it was worth a go.

It was indeed blisteringly hot and the sky a deep blue upon arrival and I was soon on the water (lots of people on beach and overwhelming stench of perfume mixed with suncream,  with whiff of barbecued sausage). Disappointingly there was quite a surface chop  and combined with a stiff tidal flow this made for quite a lumpy ride, especially going past a huge Guillemot colony on the cliff.

The adult Guillemots had their wings partly open to protect their downy offspring from the heat.

Guillemots crammed onto the ledges at Bird Rock

Hot Guillemots keeping their chicks cool

The scale of the colony is not only an assault on the eyeballs but the eardrums as well. Quite a cacophony. Take a listen to this: (video)

 

 

I unfortunately witnessed one of those incidents which always upsets people watching programs like Blue Planet, even though we know it all happens and is a normal part of nature at this kind of place.

A Herring Gull swiped an unguarded Guillemot chick from the ledge and proceeded to try to swallow it whole on the rocks below. I certainly wasn’t too happy about the (understandably) distressed noise coming from the chick. I tried to man up but I wished I hadn’t seen it and the gull had stolen someone’s pasty instead.

Skip this next pic if you don’t like this kind of stuff:                                     (I certainly don’t)

Gull with Guillemot chick

The sea was a lot calmer around the corner in the bay and I glimpsed a pod of about eight dolphins in the distance. One jumped high out of the water, just once, and then they were gone. So I paddled back to the car and admired the sunset while chatting to a Welsh chap who used to be a coalminer in the Rhondda. We both boiled up our coffee on the wall at the back of the carpark, me using my jetboil, him and his wife using his Kelly Kettle. (Jetboil faster, Kelly Kettle bigger)

Cardigan Bay sunset

I slept like a log stretched out in the back of the car, until 3.05am, precisely. That is when a very noisy diesel car pulled up beside mine, containing a man with a  loud and sonorous voice, and a woman who easily outclassed him in words per minute and volume. They were parked very close and their windows were open, and at one stage man said to wife, so boomingly that it made the upholstery shake, that someone appeared to be asleep in the car next door because the windows were down. In the car…yes. Asleep….you’ve got to be joking.

They chatted non stop till I turfed out at about 6, when I bid them good morning and asked if they ever bothered with sleep. The man looked at me like I was the weird one.

Needless to say I was on the water good and early and heading back up the coast full of expectation because the sea was super-smooth, the sky was clear blue, and it was already hot. In the even smoother waters of the bay I spotted the prominent fin and surprisingly large bulk of a Bottlenose Dolphin quite close to the shore. I approached cautiously and waited, some distance away, very careful not to cause any disturbance.

Soon the dolphin surfaced, breathed three times, flipped up its tail, and headed for the bottom again. And even better it had a calf with it, sticking to its side like glue.

Bottlenose Dolphin and calf

The next couple of hours were pretty magical. Sitting in my kayak in shorts and vest and PFD (lifejacket) under a cloudless sky in twenty-five degrees, with no wind and no tidal current to move me around. I watched the pair surfacing, taking one to four breaths and then disappearing for three or four minutes.

Bottlenose Dolphin and calf

I just happened to be sitting in the epicentre of their feeding activity and they kept appearing so close that the blast of their exhalation gave me quite a jump. |I’m sure they were hunting shellfish in the sand below because any school of fish with any sort of brains would move away from the area pretty smartish. The dolphins stayed more or less in the same place for the whole time.

video:

 

 

For long periods the calf stayed absolutely tight to the side of its mother (I’m presuming that) but just occasionally during a prolonged dive had to come up for an extra breath of air, and just occasionally went off on a bit of a solo exploration.

But these forays never lasted long and it was soon back in the security of Mum’s side:

I took a breakfast break on the adjacent beach and when I paddled back they were still feeding strong. Another couple of dolphins cam over to join them for a brief while.

(video)

 

At last I dragged myself away and started to paddle back down the coast, further offshore this time. I admired the fishing Guillemots and Razorbills as I went past. There was so much going on that I didn’t have time to admire the ghostly shape of a couple of Barrel jellyfish just beneath the surface, or my first Compass jellyfish of the the year with their very long tentacles.

Guillemot

Razorbill

After such a fantastic couple of hours I could hardly believe my luck when I saw another group of dolphins heading directly towards me. I stopped paddling and waited to see what would happen, hardly expecting an improvement on what I had already seen. And then a pretty hefty dolphin jumped clean out of the water.

Could it oblige and do one more leap for me with camera in movie mode? No, it couldn’t.

It did four instead. (video)