Canoe Sailing Adventures: September 2015

Itching to go sailing again after a long winter break and determined to start the new season with my first ever overnight camping expedition,my eye was drawn to the tidal predictions for the Medway in March, looking for a weekend with a late afternoon high tide on a Saturday with a responding early morning hide on the Sunday. This would allow a put in at Queenborough on the Swale to catch the flood tide into the Medway and down the 7 or 8 miles to Darnet Island.
The weekend of the 14th/15th seemed to fit the bill nicely, high tide on that Saturday would be at ?pm which would allow a leisurely sail to Darnet and then a early morning start on the Sunday to catch the ebb tide back, and surely the weather would be good, it's Spring after all isn't it? I arranged to meet up with Chris Taylor, another member of the OCSG for the trip and agreed to meet at 11.30 at hte slipway in Queenborough.

The first sail of the season or after a long break should, in my mind , be a relaxing affair, with time to make mental check lists of things to bring, dust down examine, insuring that all is were it was left when stored the autumn before and everything still works and is in good order. Envitably things don't work out quite how you plan so I turned up an hour later then agreed with Chris well underway in assembling his canoe on the slipway. The wind conditions were far from ideal, there was a cold North Easterly blowing a strong F5 into F6 at times. I was a bit nervous, it was marginal conditions:If I was alone I doubt I would of put out to be honest. However I loaded my canoe with camping gear, food and firewood, reefed the sail substantially and set out to beat up the Swale against the incoming tide to get onto the Medway.The conditions at the mouth of the Swale were quite rough, the North Easterly meant there was quite a reach for the waves to pick up, being blown across the Thame Estuary from Essex ight into the mouth of the Medway. At this point I realised although I had taken my small battery operated pump I hadn't set it up and it was sitting in one of my drybags. I also realised I'd forgotten to bring any charts of the estuary. Shooting into the Medway with the wind and tide on our backs was an exhilarating but at times slightly fearful experience.Even though the flood tide was quite young I decided that the best route to Darnet Island would be off the main channel and via Stangate creek, sailing behind Burntwick Island and in its lee across Bishops Ooze and into South Yanlet Creek.

Stangate Creek

Unfortunately the tide was not in sufficiently to make enough depth to sail in, and without the charts it was impossible to establish exactly where the deeper creeks were.We briefly landed on a sand bar and eventually decided to head back to the main channel and approach the island from the North.

Back in the main Channel we were once again exposed to an extended fetch which increased the wave size. Before too long we had wizzed past the large navigation markers that were putting up impressive bow wave, and turned the corner around the Island into is shelter and landed on its muddy shore and stated to make camp.

Arriving at the island

We camped on the south western side of the island Sheltered from the strong wind by the large fort, which we explored once camp had been made.

Exploring the fort

Soon the sun started to set and we made a camp fire.That was interesting!we discovered that using white petrol as an accelerant can at times be problematic on a small, island covered in last year's dried out grass and bush growth.

However control was reestablished and food was cooked and bottles were opened.The lights from nearby Medway towns illuminated the clouds.My thoughts turned to the return tomorrow morning.The wind was predicted to remain the same strength.This time we would be sail with the wind over tide.We could sail most of the way back in the southern side of the estuary which would benefit from the lee of the numerous islands

Sunset campfire

On Sunday we made an early start to break camp in order to catch the tide, the wind was as strong as ever.We departed heading east south of the Island following the buoys marking South Yantlet Creek. tacking into the waves was difficult and once again the lack of a wave deflector on my deck meant that my small pump could not keep up with the ingress of water and we needed to stop and bail numerous times.We crossed Bishop Ooze, Half acre Creek and Ham Ooze after three or four miles we started to benefit from being in the lee of Greenbourgh Marshes.

I had wanted to pass below this and round Slaughterhouse point to connect up with the bottom of Stangate creek but once again the lack of any charts made it difficult and this time we were sailing into shallows on a falling tide. We decided not to risk being stuck in miles of mud for the rest of the day and instead reached up on the west side of Slayhills marshes until we reached the entrance to Sharfleet creek which would lead on to the top end of Stangate.

At this point Chris got ahead of me and set off the wrong way down Stangate back towards Slaughterhouse point. For some reason I couldn't reach him on the VHF , although I could hear him calling me. I hung around at the top end of the creek until he decided to come back. The next section was the part I had been most concerned about:turning out onto the Medway estuary and beating up to the Swale with the wind over tide. Chris had earlier suggested that we crossed the estuary to the North shore to take advantage of the lee it provided, however the largest waves were in the middle of the estuary in the main channel so tacking along the southern side between the channel and the shore of Chetney marsh was OK:It wasn't as bad as I had feared, we attempted to round the corner of Deadman's Island to enter the Swale, again without charts we soon found ourselves running aground.With the ever dropping tide a swift retreat was needed to head well over to the Sheppy side of the Swale before we could safely run up the Swale back to the Slip at Queenborough with a large following sea.