Assist with navigation; forage and fish for your meals; visit special places that can only be accessed by sea and creek.
Create a memory that will last a lifetime with an indulgent charter with friends and family on the Norfolk coast.
Blue sky thinking takes on real meaning when you're at sea. Re-energise the team with an away day aboard one of our boats.
“We create fun, relaxing, sometimes challenging, but undoubtedly life-enriching adventures on traditional wooden sailing boats, based in Wells-next-the-Sea, on the beautiful North Norfolk coast.
Run by a small, local team of professional adventurers, we skipper and host trips ranging from four hours to three days, through creeks, marshes and open sea. Get involved with the sailing and cooking, or sit back and connect with nature – the pace is yours to choose.
We only use locally sourced high-quality food and drink on our sails, ensuring a full Norfolk experience. Our philosophy is to run a sustainable business by investing in slow food, community engagement projects and the movement of cargo under sail.”
As featured in The Guardian Newspaper!
Sail in our robust little crab boat from Wells to Cley through the marsh across the sand near Blakeney Pt, then into Cley Marsh.
On your own? Then drop us a line and we can hook you up with another group!
The aim of our Traditional Sea School is to reconnect people with the wild and beautiful nature of the North Norfolk coast, whilst providing instruction on important coastal skills such as:
- Traditional Sailing
- Understanding the tides
- Knots and seamanship skills
- Navigation (using a map and compass)
- Foraging, fishing and wild cooking
- How to sustain oneself in hostile environment
Next Sea School : Wednesday 20th February - Limited spaces available, contact us for more information. Ages 12 and up.
The Coastal Exploration Company is part of the Sail Cargo Alliance, shipping goods sustainable on coastal routes for a cleaner future, through reduced carbon emissions.
Listen to Radio 4's "From our home correspondent" 1330 Sunday 20 Jan for a report on our progress.
You can book a sail for your loved ones for the winter or next summer, just let us know what you think they will enjoy and we can then come up with some suggestions, then we provide you with a gift voucher
“FOLLOW THE WITHIES,” advises Henry, as I tug on the wooden tiller of his clinker-built, 1950s crab boat My Girls with trepidation, watching the narrow, marshy creek zig-zag before her prow.
“Swallows and Amazons, remember? Secret Water? Withies are the sticks that mark the channel, so you know where it is at high tide,” he explains. I spot them, a reassuring line of thin willows, standing upright above swirling eddies of muddy water, steadfastly marking deep water and our safe passage.
Top 10 Norfolk and Suffolk experiences
Learn to sail with the RYA-accredited Norfolk etc (01263 740704; norfolketc.co.uk) or book a sailing expedition in a traditional Norfolk fishing boat through the newly launched Coastal Exploration Company for an adventurous trip along the coast and along the atmospheric creeks and backwaters between Thornham and Cley in North Norfolk. Spot wildlife, catch mackerel, learn about navigation and enjoy delicious homemade food.
We’re sailing across a sandy-coloured sea. Seals pop up around our little crab boat and then vanish, like a game of Whac-A-Mole. Further ahead, a group lie motionless on the water, as if levitating. It takes me a moment to realise that the sea is so shallow they are resting on a submerged sand bank.
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