CRUISING LIFE
Peter Cumberlidge: English Channel tides bring life and character to harbours and estuaries. Really big springs increase the drama, especially around Brittany and the Channel Islands
During our recent jaunt to the south of France, I was reminded how important tides are in our normal cruising. While I enjoy Mediterranean boating, there is something slightly unreal about coasts where the sea level stays constant.
After a while I hanker after that enchanting tidal magic which adds life to Channel harbours and estuaries, changing their characters throughout the day.
There have been some spectacular tides at home this season. We were in Brittany for one of the largest of the year, with high water at St Malo more than 13m above chart datum, and low barely half a metre. Equivalent to the height of three doubledecker buses, this dramatic rise and fall is easily explained by scientists but seems almost mystical when you see it happen. Low water is even more fascinating than high, as vast acres of green tint on our charts become visible for a while in a special guest appearance.
In the Bay of Mont-saint-michel, the ebb falls back six miles from the famous fortified island and the flood returns across the sands at a steady walking pace. Further north, the Violet Bank south-east of Jersey uncovers to reveal an incredible moonscape of reefs and gullies where local guides lead ‘sea-bed’ walks for a couple of hours. In familiar waters we get used to crossing charted drying areas that normally have plenty of depth, yet on a near-datum low water rocks can appear that haven’t been seen for ages.
Friends of ours in St Malo watched in disbelief as a sinister weedy outcrop emerged three cables off the breakwater, a clearly buoyed and charted hazard they invariably disregard.
We were further west at Trébeurden, an ideal corner for savouring low spring tides. From the hill above the marina you look across a maze of scattered islets with navigable channels between them, but with the sea drained away, hordes of enthusiastic shellfish gatherers wander far out in search of clams, mussels and sometimes crabs or lobsters who are stranded in rocky pools.
Meandering down towards Roscoff, we crept into the Morlaix estuary near the next low water, with beacon towers looming far above us, their foundations appearing unnaturally naked. The weather was quiet, so we experienced the intense stillness of a really low spring, when any swell is shut out by layers of exposed granite.
Although we sometimes moan about our inclement English Channel weather, I wouldn’t swap our glorious tidal coasts for Mediterranean convenience, except for short escapes to drink in warm sunshine and top up the tan.
Cruising the Exeter Ship Canal is something I planned four years ago with Smuggler’s Blues 1, however, come the allotted week, the heavens opened and stayed open, so we had to abort. This time my good friend Sue Weston organised it so it was just a case of turning up at 5pm at Thatcher Rock in Torbay the day I came back from a (fantastic) Jimmy Buffett concert in Paris. I pretty much ran into the house, dumped one bag, grabbed another and headed for the marina.
The plan was to run the boats around to Exmouth Marina and spend the night there before heading upriver the following morning. It was a grey blustery day as Millie and I met Sue and her husband Matt and headed east along the coast. I’d never been into Exmouth before, an area noted for its shallow waters and threatening sandbanks. With nights drawing in, we were denied the luxury of waiting for high tide and arrived an hour after low water. A chart and an up-to-date chart plotter were reassuring, but not as reassuring as the yacht motoring in ahead of us! Figuring he drew more water than me, I snuck in behind him as we picked our way carefully upstream.
A crystal clear day greeted us as we left Exmouth Dock bright and early the following morning and picked up a couple of knots of incoming tide. The canal entrance is about 5 miles upriver, and again care needed to be exercised, although the channel turned out to be well marked. We locked in at 10am with two other boats and a late entry, another friend Greg had blasted round from Brixham that morning in his Rinker 232 to accompany us. With the gates shut behind us the lock was gently filled and we floated out into a new aquatic world, the world of inland canal cruising. And it was brilliant! No tides, no navigation, no speed, just drifting along enjoying the views.
The canal has a fascinating history. The first to be built in the UK since Roman times and the first to use a pound lock, it opened in 1587 having been built to restore ship trade to Exeter after the River Exe was blocked by the Countess of Devon who built a weir across it to power her mills.
Shadowing us the whole way were the canal’s ground crew, opening bridges to allow us through. The biggest was Countess Wear bridge. Originally a swing bridge, it was supplemented by a lifting bridge to increase traffic flow on the busy road that crosses it, so we were able to watch both swing into action before we slipped through, trying not to feel guilty about the traffic jam we’d caused as stationary cars backed up as far as we could see!
A little further up we entered Double Locks, so named because it was one of the few passing places where two huge ships could fit side by side. It took some filling, raising us up to the final level as we chatted to the friendly canal staff.
They opened one final bridge for us, allowing us to drift into Exeter Ship Basin where we had a great meal before retiring to the cockpit of Smuggler’s for drinks to celebrate our adventure.