In 2001, after 18 months of organisation, three kayakers paddled from Dover to France to raise money for a children's charity. Beaureaucratic red tape, capsizes, sea sickness, dive bombing seagulls and a procession of supertankers failed to thwart the successful seven and a half hour crossing !
It actually started off as a joke in October 2000. Late one night, after work, Neil and I were kayaking on the Thames. “Let’s set ourselves a challenge” laughed Neil. “Something crazy”.
“OK” I replied, “let’s kayak across the channel next year – Dover to Calais”. “Yes that counts” he said and we shook hands. That was how it started.
The first big obstacle was surprisingly not the training, equipment or logistics. It was to get permission from the French authorities which proved very difficult for a small independent team. In fact, the protracted negotiations right up to month we left, almost stopped us from doing the trip at all. Almost, but not quite.
We started training in earnest a year before we did the trip – with long river paddles – always late at night due to work commitments and usually arriving back after midnight. It was eerie paddling along the Thames that late, with ghostly shapes of swans gliding by and the occasional water rat diving for cover. We had a near miss with a swan trying to take off from the river in the dark and almost crashing into us at top speed.
At the end of 2000, we graduated up to training in the Solent, kayaking from the Itchin river across to Calshot and down to the Beaulieu river or across to Cowes. We mostly trained at night and had to navigate carefully through the shipping channels being extra vigilant not to get too close to the ominous Isle of Wight fast ferry.
It was a salutary lesson in sea safety for us when, during one late Friday night trip we were caught in a squall a mile out from shore. One minute we were cruising back to the Beaulieu river, the next we were struggling to stay upright with torrential rain, massive wind gusts and running down the face of big waves desperately trying to keep our kayaks from rolling. We had always been safety conscious, wearing thick wetsuits, carrying spare paddles, rescue equipment, radios and flares, but if anyone had gone into the water that night, it would have been an extremely difficult rescue situation.
In spring 2001, four months before the trip, we managed to find a sponsor who agreed to fund all the equipment. We were like kids in a sweetie shop and, with brilliant advice from the Woodmill kayaking centre, we bought three beautiful Diamante Sovereign sea kayaks, Lendl Nordkapp paddles as well as the hand held VHF radios and safety equipment we would need for the trip.
The final piece of the jigsaw was to convince someone with a yacht to act as our support boat and we were ready and waiting for our weather window. Luckily we had a friend, Ian who fitted the description perfectly.
I got the phone call in July “the weather looks great tomorrow. Get down to Dover now”. Neil, Jonathan and I packed our kayaks on the roof and bolted down to Dover harbour where we met out support boat and moored up for the evening inside the harbour.
The next morning at 7am it was a choppy day, with the boat pitching and rolling outside the harbour wall and we didn’t get off to the best start.
Jonathan was first in the water and immediately capsized in the swell next to the boat and had to be rescued. I became violently sea sick while changing down inside the boat and was vomiting every couple of minutes as I dropped into my boat and paddled away.
Finally we were off – on the 7 hour, 25 mile journey to Cap Gris Nez.
First we had to cross the busiest shipping lanes in the world ! We got into our training rhythm – paddling for an hour and stopping for 5 minutes for hydration and a snack or a boiled sweet from the dry bag strapped to the kayak. The Dover cliffs receded all too slowly into the distance and we scanned ahead eagerly for signs of France. The sea state we was surprisingly variable due to the changes in depth and the sand banks we kayaked over – sometimes choppy, sometimes with a big swell and sometimes with patches of calm water.
I was still being violently sea sick and dehydrated as we approached the half way point, and started to question whether I could complete the trip, but after four hours we saw a blur on the horizon which, started to resolve into land. France !
As the afternoon wore on, we were plagued by hundreds of seagulls who flow close behind us, swooping and diving as we paddled along. Finally we could see the cliffs and beach of Cap Griz Nez and with aching backs and legs, we dug in for the final few miles.
The support boat stopped 3 miles out as we paddled towards the shore alone, finally landing on the shore seven and a half hours after we left Dover. A couple of French people were startled as we whooped and hollered on the shore, falling over as we tried to get out of our kayaks as we tried to get circulation back into our legs.
Suddenly it was over and we had completed our challenge. A real feeling of euphoria after the months of preparation, training and hard work. As we sat in the yacht on the way back with our kayaks in tow, we opened a can of beer and savoured the taste.
“ What shall we do next ? ” I asked thoughtfully……..
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