CALM WATERS
THE IDEA WAS BORN in the way all the best ideas are: over a drink.
“Last year a group of us paddlepacked the Norwegian fjords,” Harvey, an instructor at my paddleboard club, told me. We’d just finished a raucous and particularly violent game of paddleboard polo and were enjoying a hard-earned beer on the beach. “It was incredible. Better than regular hiking because you get such a different perspective from the water. We paddled down rapids and wild camped for five days.”
Even as he was speaking I began planning my own paddlepacking adventure. But there was a catch – I was a complete amateur. I’d only started paddleboarding a few weeks earlier, so paddling rapids in Norway would have been far too advanced. The rocky coast of my native Cornwall, however, offered an adventure playground on my doorstep. With one hand I scribbled a supply list as I picked Harvey’s brains about what
