Solent crossing
On Sunday we made a crossing to the Isle of Wight, setting off from the beach at Lepe and landing at Newton Bay. The conditions were even calmer than the previous day and I enjoyed overtaking yachts which were drifting with the current with all sail up hoping to catch a breath of wind!
On this trip we practiced using tidal stream vectors to navigate across the Solent taking into account the tidal stream of about 1.6 knots. To my surprise, paddling on the calculated bearing brought us to within ten metres of the buoy that we had selected as a destination.
After a leisurely lunch we paddled back across to our launch point, again using a bearing to offset the tidal stream and with similarly accurate results. We then spent some time getting wet practising rolls and rescues and enjoying the warm water before packing up to face the traffic back to London.
Total trip distance was 16 km.