Eskimo rolls: the best way to see Wales
Sea-kayaking courses are booming in the coves and caves of Pembrokeshire. Jeremy Seal gets a close encounter with nature (but there's only one catch). Times, 30/5/2009
We were paddling out of Abercastle, Pembrokeshire when a local fisherman had a friendly go, advising us on how we might go about sourcing fresh mackerel supplies. ‘Just run a line behind you,’ he chortled, tossing fish guts to the milling gulls. ‘You’ll know you’ve caught something when you feel yourselves going backwards.’
Teasing is something that sea kayaks, all dinky dimensions and rubber-duck primary colours, do tend to cop. Not that this has stopped the recent rush to take up this easy-to-learn, low-impact sport, with Pembrokeshire-based activity operator Preseli Venture planning to double the number of sea kayaking courses it runs next year. Certainly, our five days afloat with the company demonstrated that there was nothing to compare with these manoeuvrable and rugged craft for close-up encounters with the renowned marine and bird life, awe-inspiring geology and gin-clear Atlantic waters of Britain’s only coastal national park. Abercastle had barely disappeared from sight when our guided flotilla of six one-person kayaks entered an other-world beyond the reach of others, facetious fisherman included. We nosed our kayaks into echoing sea caverns and paddled across kelp-strewn shallows. We swooshed beneath soaring granite arches on rollercoaster swells. Grey seals surfaced to share in the fun while peregrine falcons soared along the cliffs.
Its surf beaches and coastal path, its coasteering and rock-climbing opportunities have established Wales’ southwestern county as among Britain’s top activity coastlines. As a kayaking mecca, however, this nibbled and sheltered shore of bays, coves and caves, with sea conditions and testing tidal races to suit every level, is internationally renowned.
Lodge-based kayaking tours have been on offer here for decades. Now, however, operators are coming over all expeditionary. By diversifying into kayak-camping, they are allowing visitors a closer communion with this concertina coastline touched by the spirits of Celtic missionaries and Victorian merchant sailors.
Having stowed overnight bags and tents in the support vehicle, we launched one morning from Whitesands Beach. Jon, our tutor-guide, led us across Ramsay Sound where porpoises were surfacing. With Jon’s help, we worked on our sea skills, appreciating the strength of the tide as it carried us south down the east side of Ramsay Island towards the Bitches. By this gap-toothed line of foam-smothered rocks we lingered like skiers teetering above a black run. But in the course of our session here we began to acquire the confidence and technique to appreciate these feared rocks as something of a kayaking playground.
Later that day, after picnicking in a silent cove, we paddled into St Bride’s Bay. Offshore islets were threaded with narrow channels where cormorants bobbed on rock-fringed lagoons. In the open water beyond, we set about procuring supper. There were mackerel, though not off my line, by the time we put ashore at Porth Clais. We barbecued them in camp, a low-key field site just above the tiny harbour fringed by ancient limekilns. After dinner, we walked along hedge-lined lanes to St David’s for a gloaming glimpse of the cathedral sleep-nestled in its grassy hollow.
By morning, the weather had defied the forecast and turned spiky. Big seas off Porth Clais soon forced us back to harbour. Not that this troubled the redoubtable Jon who had learned from experience of this county’s kindness to kayakers, with at least one sheltered stretch of coast for every wind direction. No sooner had he retrieved the support vehicle and loaded us and the kayaks than he was holding up a wind-testing finger.
‘Fishguard,’ he declared, transferring us half an hour north to launch into a flat sea. Later that afternoon, after more superlative paddling, I reckoned on one last chance on bagging a mackerel. I thought I had landed one, a big one, when the line went tight behind me. A glance over my shoulder revealed I had snagged a hook on a lobster pot buoy. And, in the current, I began to feel myself going backwards.
Jeremy Seal was a guest of Preseli Venture (01348 837446; www.preseliventure.com) whose next 5-day Sea Kayaking Odyssey (£439 per person full-board) runs from August 21st-25th).
OTHER UK ACTIVITIES:
Gorge scrambling, an inland version of coasteering, involves trekking amongst boulders and diving from waterfalls in wet suits and helmets. Explore the Lake District’s ghylls and becks, from £40 per person half-day, through www.riverdeepmountainhigh.co.uk (015395 31116), from Easter to October.
Year-round Kite-surfing combines heavy-duty kite-flying and surfing in a demanding combination of wind, waves and balance. Newquay, Cornwall’s Extreme Academy (www.watergatebay.co.uk, 01637 860543) has a range of courses, starting with a half-day introduction (£50 per person).
Self-guided award-winning inn-to-inn walking holidays in southwest England, with luggage transfers and faultless waterproof trail cards to lead you in detail along tested routes through the best of the Cotswolds, Wiltshire and Dorset. www.foottrails.co.uk, 01747 820626.
The award-winning 7Stanes Project (www.7stanes.gov.uk) has established Southern Scotland as Britain’s mountain biking capital, with a range of excellent forest and mountain trails from Newton Stewart in Dumfries and Galloway to Peebles in the Borders. Each trail area has a specially commissioned stone sculpture or stane commemorating a local legend.
Teasing is something that sea kayaks, all dinky dimensions and rubber-duck primary colours, do tend to cop. Not that this has stopped the recent rush to take up this easy-to-learn, low-impact sport, with Pembrokeshire-based activity operator Preseli Venture planning to double the number of sea kayaking courses it runs next year. Certainly, our five days afloat with the company demonstrated that there was nothing to compare with these manoeuvrable and rugged craft for close-up encounters with the renowned marine and bird life, awe-inspiring geology and gin-clear Atlantic waters of Britain’s only coastal national park. Abercastle had barely disappeared from sight when our guided flotilla of six one-person kayaks entered an other-world beyond the reach of others, facetious fisherman included. We nosed our kayaks into echoing sea caverns and paddled across kelp-strewn shallows. We swooshed beneath soaring granite arches on rollercoaster swells. Grey seals surfaced to share in the fun while peregrine falcons soared along the cliffs.
Its surf beaches and coastal path, its coasteering and rock-climbing opportunities have established Wales’ southwestern county as among Britain’s top activity coastlines. As a kayaking mecca, however, this nibbled and sheltered shore of bays, coves and caves, with sea conditions and testing tidal races to suit every level, is internationally renowned.
Lodge-based kayaking tours have been on offer here for decades. Now, however, operators are coming over all expeditionary. By diversifying into kayak-camping, they are allowing visitors a closer communion with this concertina coastline touched by the spirits of Celtic missionaries and Victorian merchant sailors.
Having stowed overnight bags and tents in the support vehicle, we launched one morning from Whitesands Beach. Jon, our tutor-guide, led us across Ramsay Sound where porpoises were surfacing. With Jon’s help, we worked on our sea skills, appreciating the strength of the tide as it carried us south down the east side of Ramsay Island towards the Bitches. By this gap-toothed line of foam-smothered rocks we lingered like skiers teetering above a black run. But in the course of our session here we began to acquire the confidence and technique to appreciate these feared rocks as something of a kayaking playground.
Later that day, after picnicking in a silent cove, we paddled into St Bride’s Bay. Offshore islets were threaded with narrow channels where cormorants bobbed on rock-fringed lagoons. In the open water beyond, we set about procuring supper. There were mackerel, though not off my line, by the time we put ashore at Porth Clais. We barbecued them in camp, a low-key field site just above the tiny harbour fringed by ancient limekilns. After dinner, we walked along hedge-lined lanes to St David’s for a gloaming glimpse of the cathedral sleep-nestled in its grassy hollow.
By morning, the weather had defied the forecast and turned spiky. Big seas off Porth Clais soon forced us back to harbour. Not that this troubled the redoubtable Jon who had learned from experience of this county’s kindness to kayakers, with at least one sheltered stretch of coast for every wind direction. No sooner had he retrieved the support vehicle and loaded us and the kayaks than he was holding up a wind-testing finger.
‘Fishguard,’ he declared, transferring us half an hour north to launch into a flat sea. Later that afternoon, after more superlative paddling, I reckoned on one last chance on bagging a mackerel. I thought I had landed one, a big one, when the line went tight behind me. A glance over my shoulder revealed I had snagged a hook on a lobster pot buoy. And, in the current, I began to feel myself going backwards.
Jeremy Seal was a guest of Preseli Venture (01348 837446; www.preseliventure.com) whose next 5-day Sea Kayaking Odyssey (£439 per person full-board) runs from August 21st-25th).
OTHER UK ACTIVITIES:
Gorge scrambling, an inland version of coasteering, involves trekking amongst boulders and diving from waterfalls in wet suits and helmets. Explore the Lake District’s ghylls and becks, from £40 per person half-day, through www.riverdeepmountainhigh.co.uk (015395 31116), from Easter to October.
Year-round Kite-surfing combines heavy-duty kite-flying and surfing in a demanding combination of wind, waves and balance. Newquay, Cornwall’s Extreme Academy (www.watergatebay.co.uk, 01637 860543) has a range of courses, starting with a half-day introduction (£50 per person).
Self-guided award-winning inn-to-inn walking holidays in southwest England, with luggage transfers and faultless waterproof trail cards to lead you in detail along tested routes through the best of the Cotswolds, Wiltshire and Dorset. www.foottrails.co.uk, 01747 820626.
The award-winning 7Stanes Project (www.7stanes.gov.uk) has established Southern Scotland as Britain’s mountain biking capital, with a range of excellent forest and mountain trails from Newton Stewart in Dumfries and Galloway to Peebles in the Borders. Each trail area has a specially commissioned stone sculpture or stane commemorating a local legend.
