Paddle 12 Emsworth to Langstone Harbour Entrance and back

The start of the paddle was from Emsworth slip at the end of South Street.  The low tide was at 9:15 AM and was 2.07 metres high / low.  That's about the highest low tide we get in this area, low tides during springs are usually less that 1.0 metres.  You can see in the beginning of the video that there was water near the slip at our departure time of 8:00 AM.  We had to paddle a long way before the water was more than a metre deep, so I suspect if you tried to launch from here on a low spring tide you may be faced with carrying your boat up to a mile along the channel before it would float.  If anyone knows from experience I'd love to hear from you.

 

We paddled along the channels sheltered from the wind by both Hayling Island and the mud banks.  It was peaceful but not silent, the geese provided a relaxing constant background chatter.  After a wrong turn down a dead end (at low tide) channel, we went past Northney Marina and Hauling Bridge.  Both locations provide all water egress, although I'm not sure if Northney Marina charge landing fees for kayaks.  The slipway on the NE side of Hayling Bridge is free and leads to a public car park outside a great pub.  There is also a slip way on the NW side of the bridge but I believe that is a private slip for the use of the sailing club there.

 

We paddled against a F3 wind in Langston Harbour and went to the South of the sand bank the Mulberry Harbour is stranded on, so that we could look at the wreck of a Second World War landing craft beached on a mud bank between  Sinah Holliday Camp and the Kench.

Landing Craft wreck

A few miles further and we reached Langston Harbour Entrance, according to our GPS we had paddled just over 8 statute miles.  The café on Hayling side just up from the ferry pier was friendly, sensibly priced and made decent drinks.  In the 20 minutes we spent having lunch the forecast F5 arrived, complete with white tops to the very small waves in the sheltered harbour.  The paddle back to Emsworth was completed with wind and tide in our favour with the GPS showing us regularly exceeding 5 mph ground speed.  I experimented with my Greenland paddle, trying a wing paddle sideways element to the stroke.  It felt more efficient, need to do more work on this.

Total distance logged 15 statute miles.