Whilst stuck indoors as the storms roll in I’ve been doing some mathematics. Adding up, to be precise.
I unearthed all my diaries from the last nineteen years from the top cupboard, where they were all jumbled up with my old trainspotting loco log books (one autographed by Captain Sensible) and fifty year’s worth of notepads containing of wildlife records.
I know what you are thinking and yes, the nerd word has never been far away.
The diaries contain details of all my 3369 kayaking days since 2005. All I had to do was add them together. Simple, seemingly, but you’d be surprised how much can go wrong when you have to press the + button 3368 times.
By the time I had finished, there were quite a few less teabags remaining in the pot and all that was left in the hobnob tin was crumbs.
The screen on the calculator showed 32,011.4 miles. That’s the equivalent of paddling around the planet one and a third times.
I’m really not sure whether this is something to shout about or something that should have stayed in the fusty cupboard. Whatever, I have enjoyed every minute of the 10,000+ hours in the kayak seat over the last two decades, and still do. At least with that amount of hours notched up, I should theoretically know what I am going on about.
I have had great pleasure in dipping my paddle into the waters of all seven continents, although Africa was in 1989 and New Zealand was in 2003, before I took up kayak-touring in earnest.
The 32011 total breaks down as follows…
27,158 miles in Devon and Cornwall
It took me ten years to piece together the entirety of the Southwest Coast from Poole to Minehead, all 1154 miles of it. It’s a lot more than the walking route if you go up every creek as far as you can get at high tide, out around all the islands and into every cave…
I now cherry pick whichever location offers the promise of calm conditions and most exciting wildlife sightings. This includes 21 trips out to Eddystone, one Scilly crossing and two day trips to Lundy from Hartland.
I find these offshore trips are the most thrilling because they offer the chance of a really extraordinary sighting.. However the sea is hardly ever flat enough to venture far out so much of the time I spend cowering up a creek or paddling the rivers. Lucky there are so many around Devon and Cornwall…and that they are so beautiful!
2,218 miles in Scotland
438 down the Rivers Spey, Tweed, Dee and Tay and along the Caledonian Canal. 1780 off the West coast.
The River trips were multi-day camping expeditions with my brothers and chums between 2006 and 2010. Top entertainment and a lorra lorra laughs.
The west coast and Western Isles has been largely solo kayaking, including a 500-mile camping expedition.
My knuckles were whitest during a solo circumnavigation of St. Kilda. Only ten miles but I felt very small and vulnerable beneath the huge cliffs of the ‘dark side’, far from any phone or radio reception. The Great Skuas were licking their lips.
1,173 miles in Spain
All along the Mediterranean coast within sight of, and including, Gibraltar. Weather a bit more reliable than UK but having said that the extreme western Med does catch a bit of a stiff easterly. Nice ‘n sunny, though!
548 miles along the Thames
I love the Thames. Probably because I was brought up near Reading only a few miles from the sleepy, willowy river and spent a large amount of time dibbling about in the shallows when I was a wee tot. In those dreamy days when it always seemed to be sunny, Water Voles were everywhere and Snipe drummed over all the marshy bits. The latter two are gone…fortunately the sun hasn’t.
I have enormously enjoyed paddling the length of Old Father Thames twice. Actually the second time wasn’t so much fun as it was during the Devizes to Westminster canoe race and I was so exhausted by the end I could lift a mini Magnum to my mouth.
312 miles in Wales
The distance is split equally between the west coast (looking for Bottlenose Dolphins) and the Rivers Wye and Severn. The Wye in May is hard to beat. Clouds of Mayfly are pursued by all manner of little fluffy ducklings/goslings/cygnets and the riverside bushes are a cacophony of birdsong.
Oh…and a canal or two…
194 miles in Canada
Vancouver Island, to be precise, in August and September this year. Orcas and Humpbacks were our target species, but we were happy with all the other stuff we observed in and beside the super-deep, super-swirly and super-fertile water. Dolphins, sea-lions, seals, bears, otters, eagles and some legendary little birds such as Marbled Murrelets.
52 miles in Greenland
A wildlife watching expedition with eldest son Henry in 2016.
Unfortunately it was almost devoid of wildlife but the disappointment was offset by the incessant cracking and booming of icebergs, some the size of cruise liners, which were an endless source of amazement.
43.4 miles in Antarctica
Extraordinary. The scale of the frozen continent is staggering. Icebergs, glaciers and bare rock as far as the eye can see, and then this or something similar repeated another 500 times beyond this until you get to the other side. We didn’t go to the other side, we very much loitered.
We launched our kayaks from the back of the expedition ship. Not entirely in keeping with my ‘paddle-out-from-the-shore’ ethos, but there is no other way we could have had such unbelievable wildlife encounters, so it was entirely worth it.
I still can’t work out why we didn’t get really cold, as both the sea and air hovered about freezing point.
43.2 miles in Thailand
The other end of the temperature scale to the Antarctic…it was blisteringly hot and sweaty the whole time. Our biggest kayak adventure was a circumnavigation of Ko Phaluai island.
There were no maps and no phone signal so we had no idea how far it was around when we set off. We just kept on paddling, and arrived back at our destination nine hours later. Worried-looking locals were peering anxiously in the direction we had set off in anticipation of our return, and fell off their seats when we rolled in from the other way.
A few days in Khao Sok lake paddling beneath the gigantic limestone pillars was another highlight.
38 miles in Mexico
A five-day guided kayak trip in the Sea of Cortez should have been a wildlife spectacular under a baking sun. It wasn’t. It was cool and windy and the sea was too choppy to see any fins.
Unprecedented weather, apparently. Just our blooming luck.
24 Miles in France
Family Fun down the Ardeche Gorge
12 miles in USA
This was a bonus. A couple of kayak trips off the coast of California were short because we spent the whole time watching the adorable Sea Otters. Couldn’t drag ourselves away!
2.8 miles in Patagonia
We nearly didn’t do this kayak trip because the weather looked dodgy. That is how it turned out. A sudden gale-force wind, which we heard approaching up the valley with a roar like a jet fighter, forced us to abort and walk out. We were only on the water for about an hour.
Never mind, at least it was another continent ticked off.
At least we saw an Andean Condor from the kayak seat…how cool is that!
No disrespect to Condors, but on it’s day, there is nowhere better than Cornwall and Devon.
How convenient.
The Lone Kayaker 