Alnmouth to Dunstanburgh Castle
This is the classic Northumberland starter paddle: a shallow estuary launch, two miles of dune-backed sand, then a whin sill headland with a castle sitting on top of it.
12 kt 2.4-3.9 m springs
Coastal paddling pilot
Every stretch of water,
written around tide and wind.
One page per segment of water: distance, tide window, wind limit, launch access, hazards, bail-outs and the return leg. The numbers come first and the description follows, because that is the order the decisions get made in.
Modelled tide level now
3.80 m falling
Computed from a semidiurnal model in your own timezone. Use it to see which way the water is going; use the day’s tide table for the times.
20 / 30 segments
01 · 5 segments
East coast
Sandbars, estuary mouths and a coastline that runs north-south, so almost every wind is either onshore or offshore with nothing in between.
Published wind limits average 11.2 kt, lowest 10 kt.
Seahouses to the Farne Islands
Six nautical miles each way, one of the largest grey seal colonies in England, and a tide gate that decides whether the crossing takes forty minutes or two hours.
10 kt 2.8-4.2 m springs
Blakeney to Scolt Head Island
North Norfolk has the largest tidal range on the English east coast and a harbour that is dry sand for eight hours in every twelve.
12 kt 3.6-5.1 m springs
2
more segment guides
Read the guide →02 · 5 segments
South coast
Chalk cliffs, shingle banks and the highest number of paddling days in the year, with a swell that arrives from the Atlantic with nothing to stop it.
Published wind limits average 11.2 kt, lowest 8 kt.
Chesil Cove and the Portland Bill race
Portland Bill is the classic British tidal race.
8 kt 1.6-2.2 m springs
Keyhaven and the Hurst Narrows
Hurst Narrows is the gap between the mainland and the western tip of the Isle of Wight, and roughly half the water that moves in and out of the Solent twice a day passes through it.
14 kt 2.4-3.7 m springs
Start Point and Hallsands
Start Point is the southernmost tip of Devon and one of the most exposed headlands on the English south coast.
10 kt 3.2-4.8 m springs
2
more segment guides
Read the guide →03 · 5 segments
West coast
Deep-water sounds, tidal races and islands. The largest tides in the country and the strongest streams, in water that is often flat calm between them.
Published wind limits average 10.8 kt, lowest 8 kt.
Ramsey Sound and the Bitches
Ramsey Sound separates Ramsey Island from the Pembrokeshire mainland, and the Bitches are the reef in the middle of it that turns the whole channel into a tide race on every spring tide.
10 kt 4.6-6.8 m springs
Holyhead to South Stack
Holyhead New Harbour is an all-tide, no-surf, fully sheltered launch, which is rare enough in Britain to make this coast worth the trip on its own.
10 kt 4.4-6.2 m springs
The Menai Strait and the Swellies
The Menai Strait is 14 miles of water separating Anglesey from Wales, and at its narrowest point, under Telford's suspension bridge, it squeezes through a rock-strewn passage called the Swellies where the tide reaches five knots and the direction reverses in a quarter of an hour.
14 kt 4.2-6.4 m springs
2
more segment guides
Read the guide →04 · 5 segments
North coast
Short summer nights, cold water and remote channels. The weather window is measured in hours, so the decision is made on the shore on the day.
Published wind limits average 12 kt, lowest 8 kt.
The Pentland Firth and Hoy Sound
The Pentland Firth is the channel between the Scottish mainland and Orkney, and it is the strongest tidal stream around the British Isles.
8 kt 2.8-4.6 m springs
Scapa Flow and the Churchill Barriers
Scapa Flow is the largest sheltered harbour in the British Isles: 120 square miles of water enclosed by Orkney, with the best kayak camping in Scotland and a set of tidal channels between four islands that were joined by concrete barriers in the 1940s.
14 kt 2.6-4.2 m springs
Mousa Sound, Shetland
Mousa is a small island off the east coast of Shetland with two claims to fame: a drystone broch that is the best preserved in Scotland and around 2,000 years old, and 6,000 pairs of storm petrels, the largest colony in Britain.
12 kt 1.8-2.9 m springs
2
more segment guides
Read the guide →Where the numbers come from
Every figure on this site is a planning input, not a prediction. Tide windows are stated as a state and a range so you can match them against the day's tide table; wind limits are already reduced for the water the segment sits in rather than being open-water figures; distances are one-way paddling distances on the line described, not straight-line distances between two points.
The atlas publishes on a drip — 20 of 30 guides are live — so what is linked here today is a complete set of routes rather than a site waiting to be filled in. Before you paddle any of them, read the day's forecast for the hours you will actually be on the water, and check the water from the shore before you launch.