South East Sea Kayakers: Milford-on-Sea and the Needles 13th July

Which became Lymington Harbour to the Needles,. Three paddlers on this trip, myself, (Gunner) Graham and Peter Hennessay. Once more an early start for the 150 mile drive to Lymington, this doe’s have the advantage of clear roads all the way and we arrived nearly half an hour early. Following a strong cup of coffee and a slightly greasy bacon and egg bap from a local café, Graham and I met Peter at the planed location.
After my usual faffing around with bits of kit, we were on the water maybe ten minutes latter than planned, which in my book counts as on time

A straight forward paddle over to the island ensued, we remained just outside the deepwater channel coming out of Lynmouth and then took a heading of 190 degrees to pass close to fort Albert, before altering course to cross Totland bay. On the way over we keep a constant watch for other traffic but being at the quieter end of the Solent and still quite early, we generally had plenty of space. Considering that it was a neap tide and we were paddling into an admittedly very light breeze, when I looked down at my GPS I was surprised to see that we had clocked in excess of six and a half Knots. I can begin to see how it is possible to do the sixty-nine mile circumnavigation of the island in a single day. Having arrived at Alum bay early, we took a lunch break, while we waited for the slack tide, before going on the Needles. Not having paddled around the Needles before, two points took my attention. I’ve known, for some time that there is a military establishment on the cliff top, but was quite surprised to see, what I took to be gun emplacements, at close to water level. These could only have been tunnelled down to from above and cut from inside the cliff face. Secondly I was taken by how sharp the upper edge of the Needles stacks are. As the sun had now shown its face we briefly stopped back in Alum bay to shed a layer of clothing, before, making the crossing back to Lynmouth. We followed a very similar route to the journey out, but now that the tide had turned and the wind had built slightly, the tide race between Hurst spit and the island was flowing nicely, and the water was quite confused. At one point I had to call on my bracing for much more than a bit of extra support. Remembering this was a neap, I would be wary of crossing here on a spring tide. Once across the race and behind the spit the water settled down and with a good force three and the tide behind us we made good time back to Lynmouth.

All in a good trip, the weather was exactly as the forecast predicted although a little more sun would have been good. Again good company, and thanks to those who came along. Below a few photos.