I have been up river… On a spring tide I left Sandy Acre Point and followed the flood up the River Tamar to Cotehele Quay. It is a beautiful river to follow, though very shallow at its periphery. The channel twists and turns, first though one must navigate under the Tamar Bridge carrying the main road and rail connections between Cornwall and Devon. On past Saltash sailing club moorings and to Cargreen, and its own sailing club and moorings. Lines of obliquely laid moorings with a narrow fairway, the tide pushing up relentlessly as I ferry glided Dawn through and between the boats. Now the city of Plymouth falls away and the river closes in a little around grand meanders with sedge and oak, and the ubiquitious mud of the Tamar…

Small quay’s line the banks, a sign of a once busy trading community, now mostly abandoned and overgrown, falling into disrepair. Weir Quay though is an active boatyard.

As the light faded I came to Cotehele Quay. A little bit of probing using the depth sounder and the charts I found a deep hole, though on the Cornwall bank, not the Devon bank as marked on the chart. A sign of the ever changing channel, the endless movement of silt. As I dropped anchor in the last of the flood tide a voice from the dark hailed me from the bank - “I’m heading out now, but come to the workshop in the morning for coffee.”

It was a bit of a wild night, the ebb and next flood were going past Dawn at the speed of a steam train. The trees and bank felt uncomfortably close as dawn swung around in and out of the eddy’s.

At daybreak, I headed to the quay side and the workshop to find the individual from the previous nights ’hail’.

Barnaby is the part-time shipwright for the National Trust based at Cotehele. He works Wed’s through Fri. We chatted for a short while, before discussing a slightly better position to anchor Dawn, which I went and did. Returning to the workshop, the rest of the day was spent talking wooden boats, meeting a few of the volunteers, drinking coffee, eating biscuits and having lunch made for me.

The following day I met up with a friend I’d not seen in over three decades. Pamela lives in Calstock with her partner Chris and dog Gwen. We had a quick catch-up over tea/coffee and agreed to meet again at the weekend.

Pamela and Chris have been wonderful to me in the 10 days or so I was in the area. Food shopping trips, fuel resupply, lunches and dinner, community cake events and more.

Adventurers and Sailers both.

After an early wake up, pre-dawn, I let go the mooring in Calstock and headed back down river on a spring ebb tide. A wonderful rainbow and the low sun heralding the day. As I re-arrived at the mouth of the River Lynher the ebb was still in force and I needed a lot of iron wind to make it up against wind and tide to the relative shelter of the Sandy Acre Point bay.

I think I dropped anchor almost on the same spot as my previous stay… At some point in the next few days I’ll be putting Dawn on a fore/aft mooring for the winter here at Sandy Acre Point (Wearde Quay). The job list is once again growing or rather not shrinking.