Sea Kayak Camping

or a quick bivi

I wrote a few issues ago about some changes, as I perceived them in sea kayaking. Shorter trips, shorter kayaks etc and I commented on how I found living from my kayaking as one of the most enjoyable and rewarding aspects of paddling.

This is one of the bleakest places that I have camped, North West Spitsbergen. To lively comfortably in an environment like this requires significant practice over the years.

It started me thinking about how many nights I had spent camping or bivi-ing from my kayak. As someone who has meticulously recorded their paddling experiences since the 1st January 1978 it was a simple matter of going through my log books plus making some reasonably educated guesses for the years before then.

Before starting counting I set myself some rules:

1. I had to have paddled to the campsite. So although I have spent numerous nights camping in Morbihan or Arduaine( who remembers that great campsite on the west coast of Scotland) I would drive there and do day trips so they don’t count.
2. Commercial campsites count as long as you paddle to them. So the site in front of the hotel on Jura meets my definition as long as it’s part of an extended paddle.
3. If whilst on a trip you get caught out by bad weather and stuck then each night you are stuck counts.

A truly iconic campsite. If you have been you will know exactly it is, if you haven’t visited the spot keep seaching and aim to camp here one night.

Below are the places where I have camped, from a kayak, in some form of geographical grouping:

Jersey
Sark
Herm
Alderney
Ecrehous
Minquiers
(I was really surprised to find that I had never lived from my kayak on Guernsey, as I see Guernsey most days)

England
Scotland
Wales
Northern Ireland
( It was a shock was to discover that I had only ever spent 1 night from a kayak in England. It was on an Advanced Sea Assessment in 1996 in Devon)

France
Italy
Greece
Germany
Denmark
Norway
(An embarrassingly low number of European countries.)

Canada
United States
Mexico
Belize

Greenland
Svalbard
(Neither which meet the full requirements of a country but are places which have occupied a lot of my time)

Australia

My first night camping in the southern hemisphere. On one of the islands to the east of Wilson’s Promentary, close to Melbourne, Australia.

So my total number of nights camping from a sea kayak is 596, which I think is a pretty respectable total for somebody who has never worked as a full time guide in the industry. I have 27 nights booked already for this year, so some last minute overnight trips should put the annual total somewhere between 35 and nights. Not bad.

What I do know is that every night spent living from my kayak will bring its own rewards. Stunning sunsets, pleasant interaction with friends, a deeper connection with the natural world and a chance to slow down my pace of life, amongst other things. Those nights will be amongst the most memorable of the year so why not start planning to a add a few overnight trips to your paddling calendar, you never know where it might lead.

I have spent many nights camping in Greenland but this was the first night of a solo trip. Undertaking a solo journey requires some different skills but the feelings of achievement are significantly greater than when camping with a group.