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Sunday 27th September was a beautiful day. The sky was
clear blue, the sun shone all day, it was 20 degrees or
more, the sea was calm and the seven members of IOPCC who
went out paddling from Sandbanks had a splendid day out!
Where were you???
Launching from Sandbanks beach was very straightforward
at 10am as there were few people about and the sea was flat.
We set off towards Shell Bay and crossed the Channel as a
group with no problems from the other craft in the channel.
As there was only a light breeze blowing most of the sailing
craft were motoring.
We made our way in a leisurely sociable manner across
Studland Bay towards Old Harry Rocks. The stacks point out
from Handfast Point towards the Needles on the Isle of Wight
28km across Bournemouth Bay. Old Harry is an archaic name
for Satan and is used to describe the stack at the seaward
end. In the nineteenth century Old Harry had a wife but this
accompanying stack fell into the sea. The perfection
continued, as it was neap tides with only 20cm of tidal
range so the tidal race, which can form off the outer edge
of the rocks, was not working.
We remained inshore and pottered along to Ballard Point
under the arches, into the caves and round the chalk spires
and pinnacles. The spectacular chalk cliffs stretch
progressively higher but then fall away after Ballard Point.
At Ballard we decided to paddle back the way we had come
and enjoy the amazing scenery again before going to the café
in Studland bay for our lunch break.
We enjoyed an hour sunning ourselves over lunch before
launching again. We paddled inshore along the beach at
Studland. There were hundreds of Naturists out enjoying the
sunshine. A pity the battery on my camera had died by this
time!
We made our way over the training wall, across the
channel, over the Sandbanks and back to the beach. Some of
the group then did some rolling practice in the lovely warm
water! After loading the boats and changing we enjoyed an
ice cream in the late afternoon sun while taking in the view
of where we had been.
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