Channel Island Sea Kayaking

A few pictures of sea kayaking around the Channel Islands, mostly from about 30 years ago or slightly older.  The difference in shape of the images is because the earlier ones were taken with a Kodak Instamatic camera (remember those?) before I had a job which paid enough money to be able to buy a 35mm camera.

In all the time that we spent paddling around the Channel Islands in the 1970's and 80's I don't think we ever bumped into any other sea kayakers, it really did feel like an era of exploration.

 This is returning to Jersey (visible behind the paddlers) from Sark in June 1979.  Note the old style hatches.

 Another image from the Sark paddle in 1979, in those days the only sea kayak which we considered having was a Nordkapp HM.  If you could afford it you had Lendal Nordkapp paddles with wooden blades, if not you just used your standard Wild Water paddles.

 Heading north from Jersey, the island is Sark, which was our original destination but we changed part of the way across and decided to go to Guernsey instead.  The paddler is Derek Hairon who now runs Jersey Kayak Adventures.

 Arrival at Bordeaux in Guernsey on our day trip from Jersey.  What had planned to be a gentle paddle turned into a 40 nautical mile day trip.  In the distance can be seen Herm (left), Jethou (right) and Sark just visible between the two.  On the return journey we stopped off at Herm to phone through to our parents to let them know that we were going to be late home and the telephone box still had buttons A and B to press.

The summer of 1982, I was getting married and so distant holidays were out of the question but we had a great two weeks paddling around the Channel Islands.  This is Port au Moulin on the west coast of Sark in August 1982.

Havre Gosselin, on the west coast of Sark  This was on an Advanced Sea Assessment in May 1983.  The Nordkapp HM still dominated the kayaks in use in the Channel Islands.  This photograph was used on the front cover of Canoeist Magazine.

 Leaving Creux Harbour, Sark in December 1983.  We left Greve de Lecq, on the north coast of Jersey,  in the dark and crossed the 12 nautical miles to Sark.  The idea was to purchase duty free drink for Christmas and we had a significant number of orders.  Unfortunately the shops were shut so that part of the paddle failed.  We did managed to find a toasted cheese sandwich before returning to Jersey and landing back at Greve in the dark.

 In the 1980's I was busy running lots of training and assessment courses for the BCU Senior Instructor Award.  This was December 1983 on the south coast of Guernsey.  The paddler in blue is Ron Moore, a superb coach and legendary speaker who was based in Plymouth, who is sadly no longer with us.

Another BCU training course in October 1984.  This is at Havelet, just south of St Peter Port.  Plastic kayaks had made an appearance, although Brian Aplin is still paddling what looks like a fibre glass KW7.  It was Brian who I accompanied on his swim a couple of months ago, from Lihou to the Hanois.

The Minquiers in September 1985.  We visited this reef to the south of Jersey as a day trip whilst training for the Canoe Club paddle we were planning for the following summer when we kayaked from Tromso to Honnigsvag, around Nordkapp.

In the 1980's I ran a canoeing (kayaking) school in Jersey but we used to do lots of trips away.  This is crossing from Guernsey to Herm in perfect conditions in July 1989.

 1989 saw the arrival of the Aleut II, designed a built by Howard Jeffs.  I still have this kayak.  It opened up a number of possibilities.  Pete Scott and myself attempted to paddle around the Channel Islands but it also meant that some people could undertake paddles that they might not have done on their own.  This is two of the younger Club members heading down the east coast of Sark in June 1990.

 I think this was still a Senior Instructor course, we hadn't quite become Level 3 coaches.  This is launching down the steep slipway in Saints Bay Guernsey in October 1990.  I was amazed that we survived all these courses because nobody had heard of risk assessments etc.  What I do remember was that there was always a huge element of fun.