WEYMOUTH TO WAREHAM 16 & 17 JUNE 2006

Nick Jacobs (Romany), Tony Roberts (Viking), Sean Foo (Romany), Matt Wall (Explorer), Julien Grouteau (Aquanaut)

This was Tony’s and my third attempt to paddle this magnificent stretch of Dorset’s (Jurassic) coast (previously with David & Mike); gale force winds postponed the first in May 2005, in September circumstances beyond our control stopped the second, half way through.  This one, with a huge dollop of jam, fell in to place.

Trip timing depended mainly on tidal flow; we wanted it from west to east for the best chance of having tide and wind behind us.  Paddling east also allowed us to pass three tide races and twelve km of cliffs (with no landing) at the start of the day when we were fresh, instead of at the end.

Also crucial was the absence of live firing on the Lulworth artillery range!

As ever the details of trip planning took a huge amount of time…even though we’d planned this one twice before.

In brief our plan was:

Thursday        Drive to Weymouth, reconnoitre, camp the night.

Friday             Leave cars at campsite, paddle from Weymouth to Chapman’s Pool & camp.

Saturday         Paddle from Chapman’s Pool to Wareham & camp.

Sunday           Drivers take train to Weymouth & return with cars to collect others.

Thursday 15 June

We’d found a handy campsite (http://www.pebblebank.co.uk) close to Weymouth and the Fleet, the long and narrow strip of brackish water behind Chesil Beach. 

Tony and I arrived early Thursday evening to check a possible launch site and the connection between the Fleet and Portland Harbour.  The proposed launch site had steep, narrow access and no beach but one field away we found Pirate’s Cove, a sandy bay at the end of a rough farm track; perfect.

Chesil Beach was strewn with fishermen’s huts, their moored boats making us confident of the connection to the harbour.  At ten o’clock we snuggled in to sleeping bags and slept, until Julien and his crew arrived just before midnight.

Friday 16 June

Weymouth to Chapman’s Pool 32.5 km (20.3 M)

Up at 05:00hrs.  Breakfast.  Everything wet with dew.  The general forecast was excellent but the shipping forecast predicted winds force 3-4 (further out than we’d be?).  We did a final sort, of gear to take and gear to leave, then drove to the beach and packed the boats.  The cars then parked back at the campsite and Tony and Julien returned to the beach via a footpath shortcut. The day was already hot.  By 08:15 we were away, rippling the Fleet’s flawless mirror, pausing only to remove gravel from a jammed skeg.

As anticipated and against a gently flooding tide we paddled 1.5 km then straight into Portland Harbour.  It’s more than 3.5 km across and not long ago housed nuclear submarines.  At its northerly exit we set a compass bearing for an open crossing of 10km to Bat’s Head, which because of the haze we couldn’t identify clearly.  Bat’s Head is a spectacular blade-like  buttress of chalk, over 30m high with a hole 3m wide at its base through which you can paddle.  So when we got there we did.

The beach beyond was empty, the sea absolutely clear and the rich seaweed gardens full of spider crabs.  After two hours paddling it was a natural place to take a break and have a dip. 

As you travel this coast it continues to charm; there are sea birds and marine life, caves and arches, a sequence of different rocks and some stupendous geological formations.  Although the sea conditions offered no excitement we were content just to gawp at the scenery while we could.  As you go you can tick off the distinctive landmarks: Durdle Door, Lulworth Cove and the steeply tilted plane of Worbarrow where we watched a peregrine falcon hunting along the cliffs.  Just before Lulworth Cove is a narrow channel and several twisty caves leading to the hidden pool of Stair Hole.  A feature of this first day’s paddle is that all day you can see Portland Bill  where you’ve come from, and St Aldhelm’s Head where you’re going.  We paddled for another two hours then lunched at Kimmeridge with most of the day’s journey done..  Kimmeridge has a wide public slipway, water, toilets, car parking and a small marine centre with displays of local sea-life. If only there were somewhere to camp…

After a long lunch under a battering sun we continued, arriving at Chapman’s Pool mid-afternoon. There were three yachts moored in the bay, a handful of people round the beach and coast walkers skirting the cliff tops.  Tony’s recently purchased carrying straps let four of us carry each loaded boat up the beach without strain, and later to carry the unloaded boats over rocks and slippery shale to put them safely above the tide line.  We resisted moving boats or making camp until early evening, wanting to attract as little attention as possible on private land, although we spread soggy items to dry.  I felt queasy and had a nasty headache, but whether from dehydration, too much sun or lunch I didn’t know.  Water, Anadin and two hours sleep in the shade sorted me out. When I woke we moved the boats and pitched the three tents on a rare level terrace 6m above the sea and away from the cliffs, which are prone to crumble and slump.  I boiled a big pan of water for drinks, then boiled some more and we all sat around, content just to sit without paddling.

Supper was easy: 500ml of home made tomato sauce, 3 tins of tuna and 1kg of pasta.  The second batch of pasta was much improved by cooking in 1/3 sea water and Julien produced a bottle of wine from the Aquanaut’s secret cellar.  We lit a fire in a well used ring of stones and in the embers Julien cooked a dessert of chocolate banana splits wrapped in foil.  In September the stars had been brilliant in an impressively black sky, but now, near mid summer all was pale.  We crawled in to our tents and slept.

Saturday 17 June

Chapman’s Pool to Wareham 35 Km (22 M)

Up at 06:00hrs by which time it was clearly going to be another stunning day.  We rounded St Aldhelm’s Head with no sign of the tide race and paddled for an hour against the last of the ebb.  Visibility was initially less than 2 km with the heavy haze.  Again there was fabulous scenery; high cliffs of honey and grey rock, fissured into rectangular blocks, with gently shelving wave-cut platforms.  Landing would have been easy in such calm conditions and we couldn’t resist poking into every cave, where the air was cool and the sea rose and fell, a beast asleep.  This stone was quarried extensively and the many man made caves were cut square.  We spotted some perched 20m above the sea, just below the cliff top, like a row of vacant double-fronted shops with grassy terraces in front and each roof supported by a spindly column of blocks.  Elsewhere narrow ledges were crowded with dapper brown and white guillimots that mumbled and cooed comically as though discussing us as we passed.  It was only 9:30 but a lad swam out of a sea cave holding a spider crab to add to a couple he already had on the rocks and here and there were people trailing ropes along the base of the cliffs.  The now slanting ropes of a row of fishermen’s buoys showed us the tidal stream had turned easterly but it wasn’t until Durlston Head, where the surface rolled and boiled that we felt it kick in.  We paddled out from shore to stay in the flow avoiding a big eddy and in ten minutes were 2.3 km further east at Peveril Point.  This marks the western end of Swanage Bay, projecting into the sea as two parallel ledges that create a race and overfall.  Time for a tea break.  We paddled down through a series of mild waves before turning back to land in a  sheltered channel between a low concrete groin (sewage outfall?) and a line of rocks close beneath the Coastwatch station.  We anticipated more fun when the race had increased with the flooding tide.  Forty minutes later we set out again.  The sea was flat (charts show the race active on the ebb – maybe they’re right!).

Swanage?  Ice cream and jet-skis.  We stayed out to sea, heading for the white spikes of Old Harry, a clutch of sea stacks at the end of 100m high chalk cliffs with dramatic buttresses, caves and arches and beaches of big white boulders.  The boat traffic increased; pleasure cruisers, speed boats, yachts and ribs.  The increasing traffic hadn’t prepared us for what lay round the corner.  Mayhem. I apologise to any sailors I may have overlooked but there were boats being ‘driven’ everywhere; buy a boat, fill it with fuel, drive it fast.  At least the intersecting wakes livened up the sea of Studland Bay’s 4 km and its otherwise rather bland sandy beach and dunes.  Sandbanks chain ferry pulled away as we approached, allowing us unobstructed entry to the enclosed but extensive waters of Poole Harbour. Mike O’Reilly recommends it as relatively safe but big enough to get interestingly lumpy.  It’s pretty too, with numerous islands, the glitzy sprawl of Poole to the north and the wild heath and woodland of Arne nature reserve to the south.  Perversely in the relatively sheltered harbour we had our only surfing.  Though very gentle it was a refreshing diversion that nearly led me under the bows of a big yacht.

2.5 Km in to the harbour we stopped for lunch on Brownsea Island. The water was estuarine and the beaches littered with cockle shells and bladder wrack.  When we continued Tony and I referred to the notes of bearings and distances we’d made for the 10 km of the harbour, partly for practice but also because large areas of shallow water can be alarmingly featureless and the map offered few landmarks.  In the event we could simply have followed the constant stream of boats going to and from Wareham.  The tide was still rising, so without fear of stranding we cut across muddy shallows while mono-skis ripped up the navigation channel.  The land gradually closed in, the final stage of transition from open sea to harbour to creek to river.  We entered  the river Frome and for the last 3km our world was a corridor seven metres wide between high reed walls.  Boats still passed each way, appearing round bends without warning.

The dense reed beds were full of invisible, chattering warblers.  I felt a strange sense of anticlimax when the concrete slipway of Redcliffe Farm finally appeared.  The owner was expecting us and we were clearly something of a novelty.  He directed us through the settlement of boat-owning canvas bungalows and immobile homes to the camping field.  We took a look.  It was uphill, 250m from the water.  It was on a slope.   We went back, explained the problem and asked whether we might camp on a small level patch that was closer.

“I thought you were all fit young men?” he jibed.

“We were this morning…” I admitted.

He then agreed to us occupying a flatter, closer pitch and lent us his battered pick-up to shift the small hill of kit that our five sea kayaks disgorged.

So  we’d done the trip. Two extraordinary days of sunny, flat calm offering a rare opportunity to view some of the country’s best coastline at our leisure.  It was not the adventure we’d expected, but I guess adventures are not about the expected.  Tide races and rough water still lie somewhere ahead.

Photos by TonyR