STYLE | Interview
The call of adventure Charlie Head – explorer Explorer of the waters of the world, Charlie Head was the obv ious choice for our ‘Adventure Awaits’ issue of Style of Wight. From padd leboarding down the A mazon and the Blue Ni le, to circumnav igating the U K, solo, without a back up boat, Charlie is the very essence of a traditiona l explorer. By Jo Ma cau lay
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harlie’s small base in the West Wight is the very epitome of an explorer’s office. If Shackleton were alive today, he’d have an office much like this one, with maps on the walls, the tools of his trade hanging from the ceiling, bags of essential kit packed neatly on the floor and interesting objects from his travels strewn over any available surface. Brought up on a boat in Cyprus during his early years, and later in Bembridge, it’s not surprising that seas and rivers have become Charlie Head’s passion and his go-to place. He began his romance with paddleboarding just over a decade ago and was the first person to paddleboard around the Island single-handed. “That’s really when it started,” says Charlie. “I went round the Isle of Wight, that was my first tester, then it was the South Coast and I decided to do the Atlantic but then Red Bull came along, and they scooped me up to do the Amazon (in 2015), instead of crossing the Atlantic.”
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He went on to paddle the Blue Nile in 2017, but in between these adventures he began his next challenge to paddle around the entire coast of the UK, which he completed in September 2021. A litany of paddleboarding ‘firsts’ During his navigation of Scotland, Charlie completed a remarkable firstof-a-kind overnight 104km nonstop crossing of Moray Firth. He paddled solo and unsupported in less than 24 hours, through two wind farms in 15 hours of darkness on November 20th, 2020. Then, on 10th December, Charlie rounded Cape Wrath, paddling east to west around the most north westerly point of Scotland; he is believed to be first paddleboarder to do so. On 21st July 2021 Charlie crossed “The Minch” from Stoer to Lemreway, a 70km solo unsupported paddle in 18 hours, and on 30th July he crossed The Inner Hebridean Sea, an open water, one of a kind 82km feat solo from Lochboisdale on South Uist, landing on Tiree 15 hours later.
Friday 10th September saw a huge fundraising and endurance challenge to mark ‘The Last Stand’ of Charlie’s circumnavigation. Then, at 4am on 11th September, Charlie concluded the first unofficial official circumnavigation of the UK by breaking the world solo and unsupported distance record - 87.2 miles / 140.3 km / 75.7 nautical miles in 22.5 hours. Setting Off When Charlie set off on his trip around the UK in June 2016, he had limited food supplies – just what he could carry on the board – and no money, relying on the generosity of supporters and strangers. “I did the UK in three stages, Land’s End to London and then London all the way around to Land’s End,” explains Charlie. “I went up the coast to Berwick on Tweed and across land on a little girl’s bike.” A little girl’s bike? “I chose the bike because it was about people supporting and helping me, and
