11 Aug 2024
Six of us launched our kayaks from Holywell in Eastbourne around 9am (low tide), and navigated carefully through the wave-cut platform.
It was quite foggy to start with and the cliffs around Holywell resembled something of an improbable rainforest scene! We paddled westwards and a couple of the others explained tips and tricks to me which I managed to try out. ‘Edging’ was particularly revelatory as a relatively new paddler!
Next up we paddled past 20ish seals at low tide. We were all surprised at how vocal they were. It was an amazing sight, with seals of all sizes present. The young pups were lighter in colour.
The chalk cliffs were a dramatic backdrop to our paddle throughout the day. Seeing the coastline from the water was incredible - the layers in the chalk and other formations were clearly visible.
It seemed like it may have been a busy day for first responders. A lifeboat crew cruised past us, (fortunately we didn’t seem to present cause for concern for them!) and shortly afterwards we paddled past an air ambulance crew hovering at the top of the cliffs.
We landed at a spot in between Birling gap and Beachy Head lighthouse, hopeful that we would find evidence of a neolithic feature (mine, well, we weren’t sure!) Spoiler alert: we didn’t find it but negotiating a seaweed and algae covered foreshore was good fun! We saw lots of other features of interest including sea anemones, barnacles and pitted chalk rock formations!
After a well-deserved tea break we felt ready to paddle back into the wind. We saw the seals again – the tide was higher so they were swimming this time and a young pup bobbed its head close to the kayaks several times.
The beach was much busier on the return trip and we carefully organised our landing to avoid disturbing swimmers.
The final challenge was pulling the kayaks back up the hill at Holywell to load onto the cars. We managed this well despite the heat demonstrating our future potential as pack horses 😃.
It was a brilliant way to spend a Sunday morning and thanks to all for sharing your knowledge to help me become a better paddler!
Laura