Back to sea

At last, I'm ready for sea again. The past two weeks have been busy with boat repairs (thanks, Mike at Rockpool, for fitting it into a very busy schedule), kit replacement (thanks to various retailers for discounts), and dealing with the police. It seems that some of the old kit might eventually find its way home, but time and tide...


The forecast is perfect for the next few days, so let's make the best of it.

Back home

Another drive to Kent this afternoon (it's a long haul by road - I'm quite pleased with that :-) to meet Mr Hards and his friends returning from their fishing trip. In line astern, like birds coming to roost, a half-dozen or so motor launches planed out of the evening haze and settled expectantly at the bottom of the slip in Herne Bay. In one lay a familiar looking hull, a bit knocked about and missing some kit, but surprisingly intact.My thanks go to the sharp-eyed anglers who saw it, had the courage to look underneath the upturned hull, the presence of mind to contact the Coastguard, and the generosity to bring it ashore. Handshakes, smiles, stories, thanks, and a nice bottle of Islay malt were exchanged.
Chaps, if you're reading this, allow yourselves a warm feeling for saving my trip (and do post the photos). Many other people have stepped up to the mark in the last 2 days, including numerous police officers and coastguards, and the rowers of Sheerness gig rowing club who were taking me under their wing when the cavalry, my dear wife, arrived. Thank you all.
Quite a bit of kit is damaged beyond repair, and - I hope not ominously - everything a paddler might have been wearing, and all but one of the distress flares, have not returned. One empty flare tube could only have been opened deliberately. Let's hope someone is safe at home, colder and wetter, older and wiser.
Tomorrow, I start checking boat and kit for damage, and finding replacements for missing items.

Boat recovered - drama continues...

We spent this morning in Kent, scouring a boat jumble for signs of missing kit. On the way home, Thames Coastguard phoned. The boat and some kit has been recovered, capsized at sea, no person on board.
For now, all we can do is pray that whoever took it is safe ashore. No matter what we think of such a person, they do not deserve to be feeding fish tonight.

photo of the missing boat

Saints or sinners? Friday the 13th? Has anyone seen this boat?

Camp was pitched by 0140 on the outskirts of Sheerness, and I promised myself a rest day to recover from the hard slog yesterday. Peering out of the tent at 0840, I saw no boat! During the night, someone had stolen my boat, paddles, VHF, EPIRB, and a list of kit too long to mention.

More details at http://www.ukriversguidebook.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=48248

This expedition will resume as soon as I can re-assemble the equipment. I didn't leave my job, find two great charities to support, and do a ton of planning, just to be thwarted by something like this.

Luxury in Greenwich

The first night of the trip was spent in luxury, thanks to the thoughtfulness of my friends Mike & Yona Heyward, and the generosity of Guillaume Rapin and his staff at the Greenwich Novotel. I must admit it was quite fun checking into a (4-star?) hotel, wearing a drysuit, and with the boat on its trolley. Having wined and dined in style, and rested by a full night's sleep, I trollied the boat down to the river and put in with the help of some boatyard workers just down from the maritime museum. Amongst the many sidelong glances from amused pedestrians, there was a priceless moment of mutual appreciation as I passed a bearded tramp who was also pulling his world on wheels behind him.
I stemmed the last of the flood stream through the barrier, and took the ebb through the drear, grey, flat industrial landscape of east London, and under the QE2 bridge.
As night fell, the lights of Shell Haven blazed on the north bank, and waterfowl rioted on the mudflats to starboard. Navigating by the channel marker buoys, I startled a flock of birds from their roost within the steel latticework of one.
There is no easy get-out for an unsupported paddler between Greenwich and the Isle of Sheppey, so it was a long slog into the darkness before I reached landfall at Sheerness, coming ashore at 2300. A day's run of about 40 miles, but with considerable tidal assistance.
My thanks are also due to TonyR of Tower Hamlets Canoe Club for his excellent pilotage notes of this section of the river.
Some youngsters on the beach lent a hand to get the boat up and over the sea wall, and another insisted on buying my fish and chips!
There would have been some great photos, but for what happened next...

Coffee and cake ...

at Festival Pier.

And the magical multicoloured lights of London.

Today, for no particular reason ...

... I decided to go for a little paddle.

So I put-in (kayaker-speak for "launch", nothing to do with Russia) at the end of the garden and headed downriver.

Through Teddington Lock, with its pretty "railway station" garden,
along the delightful riverscape at Richmond,
past Kew and Chiswick and Hammersmith and Putney,
under all the bridges to Westminster and beyond.
A coffee and carrot cake at Festival Pier;
and as the sun went down
and the multicoloured lights of London town glittered magically in the water,
I drifted quietly downriver on the ebb to Greenwich.

d'accord! (or, why we do it)

Taking a break from assembling the kit mountain, I stumbled upon this:

11 good reasons to go sea kayaking

True Wit is Nature to Advantage drest,
What oft was Thought, but ne'er so well Exprest,
Something, whose Truth convinc'd at Sight we find,
That gives us back the Image of our Mind. - Alexander Pope


Meanwhile, the house slowly submerges beneath a rising tide of charts, tide tables, camping kit, foul-weather-this, emergency that...

Where will it all fit?