Up the Creek with a paddle

We’d spent Saturday well into the evening at anchor off Bembridge on our 45ft motor yacht, Formanda, and it could have been the Med. Well, apart from the tides I guess.

Sunday was a lazy day back at home base – Haslar Marina in Gosport. I apathetically picked away at the odd maintenance task. But, as the fiercest part of the heat dropped away I wanted to experience more of that ‘getting away from it all’ feeling again before the weekend finished.

Our inflatable two-person kayak comes in so handy at impulsive moments such as these. We bought it around three years ago and the ship’s dinghy rarely gets used now as a result. The kayak is so easy to launch and way more fun in terms of being able face forward as you paddle through the water without much effort.

Decision made, I soon had the kayak launched and ready, Crewsaver buoyancy aid on and paddle in hand.

Just around the corner from our marina is a perfect paddling playground. Haslar Creek comprises three sea lakes, all interconnected. At first glance, this mostly shallow area of water is an unimportant backwater, with more than its fair share of abandoned boats that ground into a large expanse of mud at low tide. But it is also a very historic location that still gives its secrets away if you know where to look.

I took the last of the flood tide up through the bridge and stroked my way up to the piers, slips and Grade 1 listed iron sheds of the former Royal Navy Gunboat Yard. Originally built in the mid 19th Century, this facility looks like it is ready to get going again, although its former inhabitants would be barred now from entry, by a modern road bridge at the creek entrance and by increasingly silted waters. In the kayak, water depth is pretty much no obstacle, unless there is none at all.

Behind the boat sheds you can see some of the buildings of Haslar Hospital. In Nelson’s time, if you were rowed up here after getting back to Portsmouth from battle, there was a more than even chance you were a gonner. Hence Haslar’s claim to have originated the phrase ‘up the creek without a paddle’, or one of its saltier derivatives.

By now the tide had topped out, the current was still, and the wind had puffed its last gasps. The only thing making ripples on the water were the fish, getting more active towards sunset, and my kayak, the paddles carving tiny whirlpools in the oily surface.

It’s less than a mile from creek entrance to the head of navigation in Stokes Lake, an iron railway bridge that used to carry steam engines to the Victorian seaside pleasures of Stokes Bay. It now forms a path for cyclists and walkers and a diving platform for youthful revellers, while a weir underneath pens back the waters of a further lake beyond, an adventure for another day.

Mission accomplished I stopped in the middle of the creek and paused for a while, watching the sun slide towards the horizon. I’ve been boating since my teens but never cease to be amazed that, on an island of 60m people, it only takes a simple boat like an inflatable kayak, a paddle and an unmissed opportunity to get right away from it all.

 

Written by Kim Hollamby