On the WaterJun – Aug

Kayak Overnight

Water a yacht cannot enter

A sea kayak makes the archipelago a different size. You move at four knots through water a metre deep between skerries a yacht cannot enter, and you land anywhere there is a slab of rock, which is everywhere.

The right of public access does the rest. You may camp one night on uncultivated land, and a bare skerry out of sight of any house is precisely what that law had in mind.

You carry everything, which is the discipline and the pleasure. A tent, a stove, two days of food and water, all of it in the hatches, and then a night on granite with the boat pulled up beside you and nobody within earshot.

Wind decides, not distance

It is more physical than the pace suggests. Six hours of paddling is a full day, and wind rather than distance decides whether it happens — a guide will change the route in the morning and sometimes cancel it, and that is the system working.

Beginners are fine with a guide and a stable double. Crossing open water between island groups is where it stops being beginner-friendly, and that is a decision made on the day.

June to August. Water warm enough to be in rather than merely on, and light late enough that a slow day does not matter.

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