First canoe session, with friend Tom for company and moral support (and as it turned out essential canoe-retrieval). And Millie came along for the ride. Thundery showers were forecast. I chose not to research whether many people are struck by lightening on the river Dart.
At Totnes Kayaks the manager (another Tom) had a strange smile when I said we were planning to paddle to Greenway and back – being slightly further in total than the paddle to Dartmouth on the C2C. Kayaks were not allowed that far downstream, he said, ‘because in our experience people can’t get them back before dark’. That’s normal people, we thought, not highly tuned adventure athletes.
The paddle downstream – with wind, tide and river all running with us – was tranquil. We saw cormorants, egrets, and a few other canoeists, and I started to get properly into the rhythm with the double paddle. Where the river widens at Bow Creek we were hit by a downpour, and there was quite a bit of chop from the wind that blew it in, so we decided Stoke Gabriel was far enough to count as half-way. It had taken only an hour and a half, and we were brimming with confidence over a hot pub lunch. Although the tide would not be turning until 3, we decided to head back at 2, assuming there would be slack water around that time, and get ahead of our 4.30 deadline.
Stoke Gabriel from the river
Back at the creek, in watery sunshine, our first mistake was obvious. The river had gone, leaving acres of sulphurous mud with a slim dribble of black water down the middle. Getting across to the channel, and navigating it (paddles touching the mud on either side) was messy. Worse was to come. Where the creek rejoined the main river, instead of slack water we paddled out into a headlong torrent. A stormfront wind from the west, the last of the tide, and the river current itself (which I’d somehow failed to take into the equation) invigorated by running in a much narrower channel, all careering downstream towards Dartmouth. I lost about 100m just getting the bow to point upstream.
The next two hours were not pretty. Seeing which way the wind was blowing (and other meteorological and psychological forces) M fell asleep and was spared the cursing and the thrashing about. At one point it took about half an hour to overhaul a group of seagulls, who were falling-over laughing. Finally, with burning shoulders and mud up to the eyebrows, I insisted on beaching in more stinking gloop to eat flapjack and do a bit of quiet sobbing. We hauled the boats up and waded to firm ground for ten minutes while the rain eased and the sun even looked a bit like shining. Suddenly Tom gave a shout – my canoe was half-way across the channel. Once he had retrieved it we realised that at least the tide must have turned and the wind dropped – otherwise the canoe would have been in Dartmouth.
The rest of the trip was once again lovely and calm. Back at Totnes Kayaks – only 15 mins outside our deadline – we admitted going beyond the black X on the map they had given us, but drew a veil over how close we had come to not making it back. The mud has washed off, though a faint stink of rotten eggs still remains: my shoulders will be screaming at me tomorrow.
