Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
Alfred Lord Tennyson - Published 1889
We didn't want any moaning on Salcombe Bar as we came in either. We'd needed an early start but we arrived at lunch time, with plenty of water and the tide still on the flood.
Salcombe is a busy place in July and August and this fact hit us straight away. It's always a surprise to be in the narrow confines of a river or a harbour after the big spaces of the open sea. More so when the tide's flooding you in and the place is full of moored yachts and scores of little sail and power boats whizzing around.
We chose an empty buoy and rounded up into the stream to get ready to get a line attached.
"You can't go there! Can't you flippin' read?" We quickly found out that the place is run by obnoxious, spoilt teenagers in Harbour Master launches.
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| The view from our Salcombe Mooring. Notice the Salcombe Yawls and the town behind. |
He waved us further up-stream then roared off, ignoring the 5-knot speed limit which applies only to ordinary mortals. Our second choice was close under Snapes Point, a rocky headland which comes up fast on a flooding tide! Nicky got a bow-line fast while I held us into the current and we were safe.
Salcombe Town was quite pleasant with lots of shops, bars and tea-shops. On Saturday morning at 08:00 we were woken by lots of shouting and swearing very near by. I jumped up to see what was the problem and found that the buoys around us had been used, after dark, to moor a whole fleet of hire-launches. This was the re-fuelling ceremony. Half a dozen of the said teenagers were jumping from boat to boat cursing each other, the boats and the chop while pouring two-stroke mixture around liberally. The ceremony culminated in all the boats being towed away laboriously behind one or two of their number and the shouting and cheering died down behind the roar of their engines.
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| Idyllic views upstream in the Yealm |
Ten minutes' peace was broken by the clear sensation of being rammed amidships and a loud diesel engine alongside. There was a fist being rapped on our coach-roof by the time I made it on deck. It was a girl, this time, in a Harbour Master Launch. She had made herself fast to one of the bottle-screws on our shrouds and this was being bent and yanked sideways by the motion of the boats in the chop while she demanded our mooring fees. Call me fussy, but I'm always very respectful of the hardware that keeps our mast up in a gale, and of the sealant that keeps the water from getting around it into our bunks. So I undid her rope and showed her where our mooring cleats were and what they were for. I paid up and off she went.
We stayed over the Sunday, watching the traditional Salcombe Yawls race each other in the afternoon as well as a wonderful scene involving more teenage showing off in a rubber dinghy with a powerful outboard. It ended with an overly sharp, fast turn which put the large propeller through one of the inflatable hull tubes. The boat filled immediately and I wondered if a rescue would be needed using our rubber-duck. No, they were quickly scrabbling up the rocks on Snapes Point, roundly and loudly blaming each other and bouncing the submerged engine up the sharp stones. I expect Daddy will buy a new one, when he calms down...
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| Coasting: Easy days... |
By Monday we were off, heading for the River Yealm, 15 miles further west. The tide was flooding strongly when we arrived and the Yealm is smaller, though quieter, than Salcombe Estuary. In these circumstances it is important to keep up your boat-speed through the water. We need at least 2 knots to maintain steerage, 3 or 4 knots is better. This, with a few knots of current under you, seems hair-raising as you come in. You can visualise it as everything stationary, boats, buoys and headlands, being towed past you at the rate of the tidal stream. Don't be fazed, just avoid them, turn around where there's space in this 'traffic', then go back and catch them up! We did this and 'caught up' with an empty buoy, Nicky quickly got our line onto it and we settled down in the line of other boats.
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| The view of the river mouth from our mooring in the Yealm |
We had a lovely quiet afternoon on board and explored ashore as far as a river-side pub in the evening. The next morning I awoke to enjoy the regular 'tdum..tdum..tdum..tdum..' of an antique, slow-revving diesel coming down the river. As it drew closer, it got slower still then... stopped!! I held my breath, then, remembering that scouring current yesterday, jumped for the deck just as there was the gentlest bump on our bow.
"Marnin' Skipperr," the Harbour Master's boat was neatly alongside, hanging from our bow-cleat and he was beaming across at me. "Didn't knaw if you were 'wake yet, so oi came up as quoiet as oi could..."
What a difference 15 miles can make! I happily paid - 25% cheaper too at £7.00 - and off he puttered after giving me some tips about local pubs and buses.
We needed a bus because we were now quite broke and in desperate need of a cash-card machine. Plymouth was the nearest place that could oblige and while we were there we took advantage of the delights of McDonalds - an aspect of the 20th Century that had not then reached Jersey!
Newton Ferrers, the town on the Yealm, had little excitement beyond the riverside pub and a low-water causeway to the equally sleepy hamlet of Noss Mayo. This was a good place to unwind, and that is exactly what we did. Mmmmmm...
