Tuesday 19 April 2011

Tour de Langstone

Last Saturday saw 10 paddlers venture into Langstone Harbour for the first of our new, regular monthly Saturday paddles. It was great to see some newer faces out on the water and, as an all-grades paddle, we had a really nice mix of of experience, old and new. Mike Cox lead us around Sinah Lake, the Hayling Oyster Beds and under the Hayling road bridge into Chichester harbour & Fowley Island for a lunch stop at the end of Beach Road in Emsworth. The return back to Langstone took us through the gap between Long and Baker's Island (plenty of birds but unfortunately no resident seals to be seen), scraping over some shallow lagoons on a falling tide off Farlington Marshes before finally riding the fast ebb back to Eastney. A varied paddle - the distance, the building afternoon cross-wind and some choppy wind over tide waves (in the main Langstone channel) provided some challenges but everyone stayed dry and managed really well.
It was great way to push some personal boundaries in a protected, supported environment.