Sheet 04 · Launches
Three launches on this coast we keep returning to, and why
Between us we have launched from perhaps twenty places on this coast. Three of them get used over and over, not because they are the prettiest but because each one works in a wind direction that ruins the other two.
Part 01
The north quay, for everything with west in it
The first is a working quay on the north side of a small fishing harbour, about fifty minutes from the city if you leave before eight. It is not scenic. You launch between a concrete ramp and a row of moorings, with fishing boats coming and going, and the first four hundred metres are inside the breakwater. What makes it valuable is that the whole approach is sheltered from anything between southwest and northwest, which is most of our weather, so you can get on the water calmly and make the real decision about the outer islands after twenty minutes of paddling rather than in a car park.
The parking is the reason we still use it and also the reason we arrive early. There is room for perhaps six cars at the end of the quay and it fills by half past nine on a summer Saturday, after which the nearest alternative is a walk of four hundred metres with loaded boats. Trolleys help. We carry two between the group and they have paid for themselves several times over. On weekdays out of season the problem does not exist and we have had the place entirely to ourselves in February with ice in the corners of the harbour.
The one condition that ruins it is a hard northerly, which funnels down the channel outside the breakwater and makes both the exit and, worse, the return leg a long grind into wind with nowhere to rest. We have done it twice and both times the log entry ends with the same sentence about the last kilometre. In a northerly we go somewhere else, and the somewhere else is usually the second launch.
Copied off the sheet
- Sheltered from southwest through northwest, which is most of our weather
- Six car spaces, full by 09:30 on a summer Saturday
- Ruined by a hard northerly, particularly on the way home
- Two trolleys between the group cover the long carry
Part 02
The gravel beach that only works in a northerly
The second is a gravel and shingle beach at the head of a shallow bay, facing south, with a layby that takes four cars and a short carry over grass. It is a poor launch in most conditions, because a southerly of any strength puts a surf break across the whole beach and landing there becomes an exercise in damage control. In a northerly, which is when the rest of the coast becomes unpleasant, it is the best launch we know. The water inside the bay is flat, the first three kilometres run behind a line of low islands, and the wind is pushing you out rather than pinning you in.
The catch with a northerly launch is exactly that. Going out is easy and coming back is work, which is the reverse of what you want at the end of a day. We now treat this launch with a rule: turn for home at the halfway time, not the halfway distance, and expect the return to take half again as long. Four times out of five that rule makes us turn earlier than we want to. The one time we ignored it, in September 2024, we came back in the dark against fifteen knots and had nothing left for the last hour.
The beach itself is kind to boats, which matters more than it sounds on a coast that is mostly granite. Gravel that is worn round by a century of swell does not do much to a hull. We use it for any day with beginners in the group, and for the Tuesday practice sessions in early autumn before the harbour corner becomes the sensible choice.
Part 03
The rock slabs, for days when nothing else is on
The third is not really a launch at all. It is a stretch of smooth granite slabs at the end of a lane, with room for two cars if both drivers are considerate, where you can slide a kayak into deep water off a shelf about a metre above the surface on a calm day. It is genuinely unsuitable for most conditions. With any swell running, the slabs are slick, the water rises and falls a metre against them, and getting a loaded boat off there is how people break ankles.
On a flat calm day it is the best water on this part of the coast. You are outside all of the sheltered stuff immediately, the seals use the rocks about two kilometres out, and in June the water is clear enough that you can see the bottom at four or five metres. We save it for settled high pressure, and the log shows we manage perhaps six trips a year from there. The whole group knows that a forecast change while we are out means a landing somewhere else and a walk back along the lane for the cars, which has happened once.
Getting back on at the slabs is the part people underestimate. The technique that works is to come in beam on, get a hand flat on the rock at the top of the rise, and be out of the boat before the water drops away again. It takes practice and it is unforgiving of hesitation. We do not take anybody there on their first few trips with us, which is not a rule anyone wrote down but is the way it has always gone.
Part 04
The landings we keep in reserve
Every trip sheet names two landings that are not the launch, chosen for the forecast wind, and we walk through them at the cars before loading. This started after a day in 2021 when the wind changed direction three hours in and it turned out that three of the five people present had no idea where they would land if the plan stopped working. Having them written down converts a vague idea into a place with a name that somebody can point at.
On this coast the reserve landings are usually not beaches. They are a slot between two rock ridges on the lee side of an island, a jetty belonging to a summer house that is empty in April, or a shallow bay with weed that makes the last twenty metres slow but safe. None of them is comfortable. All of them are better than a long crossing in deteriorating conditions, and twice they have let us end a trip early in an orderly way instead of a rushed one.
The follow-up is the part we still forget. If you land somewhere unplanned, somebody has to go and get the cars, and on this coast that can be an hour of walking on a lane with no pavement. The current answer is that the reserve landings are only allowed to be places with a road within two kilometres, which knocks out several otherwise excellent bays and is worth the loss.
Wind speeds are the mean we agreed on at the slipway and not a gust figure, water temperature came off the thermometer on a deck line, and the times are the ones the day actually took. Where a later trip contradicts this sheet, the newer sheet says so and this one stays as written. Corrected 17 Aug 2026.