A late paddle 4th April 2009

Six of us on this trip, welcome to mark, on his first outing via the SESK web site. I arrived at the meeting point, 6pm only to find everybody else there, already kitted up and ready to go. We set off from the pontoon at roughly 6:30pm on a near dead calm sea with a clear sky and headed for the first stop at Sales point, an easy paddle with the tide, of just under three miles. As a precaution, lest a well meaning sole, noted that our cars were still on the jetty, well after dark and dialled 999. I called the trip in to the Coast Guard.


Setting off from MerseaThe planed route
After a ten minute break we set off on what was intended as the main leg of the trip. Less than 30minites in and it became dark. I had duct-taped a glow stick to light up my compass. Absolutely useless instead of numbers all I could see were white smudges. I can normally read the compass in the standard front of boat position with no trouble at all. My eyes are such that I can’t read thing close up, which leaves me in a quandary for night paddling. If I get a compass to fit on the bungies close to. I probably wont be able to see that either. We must have been a good two miles into the crossing before our target buoy became visible as a tiny flicker on the horizon. This whole area of coast is riddled with low laying sand banks, being, in terms of chartage, at the northern extreme of the Thames estuary the area is well marked with buoys. We could see lines of port markers to our starboard side setting out the channels into the Crouch and further on, the Thames itself.

We took a slight turn to the left at the inner bench head buoy, which itself is slightly to the west of Colne No one, landing slightly south of Colne point at 9:30pm. Away from the built up areas the sky was exceptionally clear and several people remarked on the very distinct halo around the moon created by ice crystals high in the atmosphere.


As we set out on the return trip, concerns were raised about getting lost, in the dark, among the shingle banks, which are evident on the seaward side of Mersea island on a falling tide. Consequently rather than following the coast, we had a slight change of plan and headed straight back to the start point. This reduced the distance by a full statute mile, but meant paddling directly into the ebbing, knot or so of tide. In terms of time on the water it probably made little difference. A couple of lessens learnt on the return trip. Glow sticks show up a lot better than some of the purpose made lights. One person had a small bright light on a strap, directly on the top of his head. This may have looked slightly silly on the beach but was the by far the most effective on the water, being, the only light in the group, that could be seen from all directions. When personal lights are hidden, perhaps by being on the opposite shoulder, a person can be completely lost in a very short distance. As can be seen by the wobbly GPS track, we had to stop several times on the return trip to regroup for this reason. The other lessen learnt is that shore lights, can be very misleading. The brighter lights looking closer than they actually are. Unless you are very familiar with an area in darkness, use known buoys or a map and compass.

GPS track
All in an interesting trip, that was a little different from the normal, under as perfect conditions as we could have hoped for. Thanks to all those who joined in. For obvious reasons a bit a lack of photos on this one.