Coasteering the Entire Coastline of Cornwall

Cornwall’s coastline is famous for its dramatic cliffs and wild Atlantic views. More than four million people visit the county each year, many of them walking sections of the 300 miles of coastal path that trace the edge of the land. But there’s another way to experience this coastline entirely.

Over the last few years, I’ve been working on a personal challenge to traverse every inch of Cornwall’s shoreline by coasteering. Instead of following the path above the cliffs, I move along the base of them, swimming between headlands, scrambling across rocks and exploring sea caves that can only be reached from the water.

Coasteering: Cornwall’s Iconic Adventure Activity 

From its roots in Wales, coasteering has become part of the landscape in Cornwall. Today there are few corners of Cornwall where people aren’t regularly found throwing themselves off cliffs on guided coasteering adventures. Indeed, as the founder of Kernow Coasteering, I’m one of those people, spending my time guiding people along parts of the coast in West Cornwall. I’ve spent more than a decade working and exploring along this coastline.

Guided coasteering tours generally explore a small section of the coast, with a strong emphasis on cliff jumping. It is huge amounts of fun and a genuinely unique way to enjoy the coastal environment and see Cornwall from a perspective that few people get to experience. But for most people, the story ends there.

A Unique Form of Exploration 

Over the years, what started simply as hunting out new routes to guide people on, turned a passion for exploring hidden parts of Cornwall’s coastline. It’s ironic that within a few tens of metres of the coast path there is a remote and wild world of exploration waiting to be explored. Sure, kayakers and boats traverse these waters. But the experience of coasteering wild sections of coastline, without any form of craft or additional power, is very different. 

Coasteering is, quite literally, the most hands-on way of exploring the coast there is. You have to swim, scramble, and traverse every inch. It’s painstaking, but the reward is to experience every nook and cranny of the coastline with its infinite array of coastal features, from narrow gullies and barnacle-encrusted squeezes, to innavigable through-caves and rock arches.

For a coastal nation like the UK, it turns out that the final frontier of exploration is right in our back yard. But here’s the thing — no one is doing this. It turns out that coasteering explorers are a very rare breed indeed. I don’t know why. The challenge of traversing a new section of coastline with all the new discoveries you might find along the way is incredibly rewarding. But it seems that even amongst coasteering guides, there are very few who actively go exploring in their own time.

Project Cornwall

In 2020, without meaning to, I suddenly found that I had coasteered the entire coastline of West Penwith, where I live. With the exception of some long stretches of beach and boulders, I had traversed the entire distance between Penzance and St Ives.

A bit like when Forrest Gump finished running across Greenbow, Alabama, I decided to just keep going. The West Penwith coastline is approximately 40 miles in length. But the whole of Cornwall, measured along the coast path, is 300 miles. What’s more, to remove ambiguity, I decided I’d cover every inch of the coastline, even the beaches, boulders, and other sections that aren’t traditional coasteering. That might sound ridiculous, but at the time of writing I’ve actually completed about 50% of the entire coastline of Cornwall. 

When I embarked on what I now refer to as ‘Project Cornwall’, it felt unattainable, almost embarrassing to say out loud. But it’s now a credible project with a real end in sight. If, on the other hand, you’re wondering why it’s taking me so long, consider two factors. There are only so many days a year where the seas are suitably calm to tackle a long and remote section of coastline. 

Secondly, coasteering is a remarkably slow way of moving. When you’re on rock, progress depends on precision and care to avoid slipping and tripping. It becomes even slower when you are compelled to swim. Also, don’t forget that for my companions and I, coasteering is all about the exploration. The better the section of coastline, the more time is going to be eaten up exploring sea caves and other features. A decent sea cave can take over half an hour to explore thoroughly, and sometimes they come one after another. An extreme example was a section of North Cornwall’s coast. It was a section that you could walk in maybe two hours tops — it took us a gruelling 8 hours to complete by traversing.

Equipment for Coasteering 

Without additional craft to carry equipment, the gear we take on our explorations has to be just right. There’s no extra weight allowance to carry any extraneous gear and every item has been battle tested over the years to make sure it’s earned its place. As well as the obvious wetsuit, helmet, and buoyancy aid, a sturdy waterproof backpack is an essential bit of kit. I’ve settled on the OverBoard Classic 20L backpack as my weapon of choice for carrying gear. 

It’s the perfect size to wear whilst coasteering. It’s just big enough to carry essential gear, such as safety kit, cameras, batteries, and food, all kept within an additional waterproof bag inside the Classic Backpack. If there's one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s the art of double, if not triple, bagging.

In addition, the OverBoard Backpack is robust enough to handle getting tossed off cliffs, as well as take a tremendous amount of abuse from constant contact with barnacle-covered rocks. The coasteering environment is the second toughest environment on gear known to man, after the surface of Venus, so any piece of equipment that can survive here is worth its salt (pun intended!).

If you’d like to read more about the equipment I recommend for coasteering, I’ve written a detailed guide to coasteering equipment here.

So Project Cornwall marches on and I can’t wait to get out there and see where the tide and sea conditions take me next.

Matt is the founder of Kernow Coasteering, offering coasteering and rock climbing in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. As well as his ongoing project to complete a coastal traverse of the entire coastline of Cornwall, he also explores more far-flung shorelines when he can. To date, he has explored remote coastlines from the Faroe Islands to Oman.