Sea Kayaking / Canoeing in February

Ganvie is one of the most remarkable inhabited places in West Africa, a whole town raised on stilts over Lake Nokoue and reached only by dugout canoe. The Tofinu people built it centuries ago as a refuge: Dahomey's warriors were forbidden by custom from following people onto the water, so a community grew up living entirely on the lake, and it never came ashore. You cross from the landing at Abomey-Calavi by pirogue, gliding out to a town where every journey is by canoe, property is measured in stilts, and a floating market gathers each morning as women trade fish and produce boat to boat. Around the houses stand the acadja fish-fences the Tofinu use to farm the shallows. Going by pirogue with a Tofinu guide, ideally paddling the quieter channels away from the main route, turns a sightseeing trip into a slow read of a genuine water culture. It is a half-day from Cotonou that stays with you.

The Exuma Cays are one of the finest sea-kayaking grounds on earth, a string of tiny uninhabited islands laid across shallow banks so clear and calm that you can paddle for days from cay to cay. At the heart of the chain is the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, established in 1958 as the first land-and-sea reserve in the world and a no-take marine sanctuary, where the reefs, turtles and fish have been protected for generations. Paddling here you camp on empty beaches, snorkel coral heads and the grotto made famous by a James Bond film, meet the endangered Bahamian rock iguanas that bask on their own cays, and pass the beach where the islands' swimming pigs wade out to visiting boats. Because the water inside the banks is sheltered and warm, this is expedition paddling without big seas, as suited to a first multi-day trip as to seasoned kayakers. Doing the cays by kayak, at the speed of a paddle stroke, is a completely different experience from the day boats that buzz between the highlights.

The Leeward wetlands are the quiet counterpoint to the Turks and Caicos beach scene. Behind the resorts of Providenciales lies a shallow labyrinth of red-mangrove channels, seagrass flats and tiny cays that no motorboat can enter, so the only way in is by kayak or stand-up paddleboard. Gliding through the narrow mangrove tunnels, you pass juvenile reef fish, lemon and nurse sharks, rays, conch, turtles and wading birds using the roots as a nursery, part of the Ramsar-listed wetland system that spreads across North, Middle, East and South Caicos. The water is glassy and clear, the paddling is easy and sheltered even when the coast is windy, and a good guide reads the ecosystem for you, from the way the mangroves build the islands to the creatures hiding in the shallows. This is minimum-impact travel in a place that pioneered it, a slow, close-up way to understand the banks that make the country's diving and fishing so rich, and a welcome contrast to a week spent only on the sand.

Nan Madol is the only ancient city in the Pacific built out over the sea, and the best way into it is by water. Off the southeast coast of Pohnpei, on and around Temwen Island, some ninety-two artificial islets were raised from the reef out of stacked columns of black basalt, laid like giant logs into walls up to eight metres high. Built by the Saudeleur dynasty from around the twelfth century as a ceremonial and political capital, it earned the name Venice of the Pacific for the tidal canals that run between its islets. UNESCO inscribed it as a World Heritage site in 2016. You reach the core islets, including the royal mortuary compound of Nandauwas, by paddling or boating in on a high tide through mangrove channels and open canals, threading between basalt walls with the jungle closing overhead. It is a quiet, humid, half-drowned ruin that almost no visitors see, as haunting from a kayak as any temple in Asia.

Sai Kung is where Hong Kong stops looking like Hong Kong. Twenty minutes by boat from the seafood restaurants that line the town waterfront, the coast breaks up into a maze of green islands, clear bays and some of the most dramatic volcanic rock in Asia. This is the Sai Kung Volcanic Rock Region of the Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark, where a super-eruption around 140 million years ago left cliffs of neatly stacked hexagonal columns, and the sea has since carved arches, caves and stacks into them. A kayak is the right tool for it: you can slip inside sea caves, paddle under arches and land on the white sand of bays like Long Ke Wan that no road reaches. The water is warm and usually calm in the sheltered channels, the geology is world-class, and marine life from sea urchins to the occasional green turtle turns up in the shallows. Guided trips out of Sha Ha beach and the town pier pair the paddling with snorkelling over coral and a stop for lunch, and the guides read the wind and tides that decide which of the arches and open crossings are safe on the day. The best window is the cooler, calmer stretch from autumn through spring, outside the summer typhoon season.