Helford Passage Canoe  Fri 26th August 2016  9.7 miles

Les had suggested that it might be an idea to try a paddle on the Helford Passage and as the weather and tide was set right for this Friday we might go for it. As Jackie and I were camping at Berryfields, Porthcothan it would be less of a journey for me but a 90 minute or so for Les. We agreed to meet at Kingsley Mill  on the A30 just outside Fradden for 0800hrs.

I was awake at 0700hrs  dressed and departed by  0720hrs. I took the coast road pass Bedruthan Steps. Here the field was full of campers. There was little or no traffic on the road. In another couple of hours it would be jammed packed with day trippers seeking the beaches. It was, after all a beautiful August Bank Holiday.

Turn down past the airport to Fradden and Kinsley village. Les not yet on site.I considered a coffee. Costa was there but that's not for me. Far too pricey. I walked into the Brewers Fayre with the intention to use the loo. The woman at front of house stops me and asks if I require a table for breakfast. "No" I reply "I'm looking for a friend, I'm meeting someone inside for breakfast". I smile, she lets me pass. I make straight for the loos then out the rear door into the kiddies park and through a gap in the hedge.

Les soon arrives at 0800 hrs. and we cross deck his canoe and kit into my van and are soon away. Chatting like excited schoolboys we arrive at the car park at Helford Passage. It's £1-00 all day to park. I can afford that. I ask a local guy, who is employed by the complex here if I can we drive to bottom of the hill to drop the canoes. "Sure".There's barely room to drive down the lane with a switch back thrown in as well. We stop at the slip and double check with the girl on duty in the ferryboat/slip office if it's OK. There is a charge of £2 to launch from here but given that gives us access to the concrete slip and more importantly we didn't have to take the canoes  down the hill or more importantly drag 'em up at the end of the day which would have been a crippler. We paid up with a smile for once. 

Even at this early hour there are a few people on the beach or in the water.  We drop the kit double quick and lift off the 2 canoes. Leaving Les to organise the kit I drove out 300m  to the turning point. A woman and her two dogs caused me no end of problems, that's how tight the road is. I made a mental note not to do that again and turn on the slip. A mistake then drive up the road to the car park. Quickly changed and made my way down through the hotel letting complex and Ferryboat Inn to the beach. Les had the canoes loaded and ready for launch. I strapped on my life jacket and lifeline, double checked my water-bottle was attached and my sarnies stowed and we were off. We launch at 0930.

It was a beautiful day. Clear blue skies, no wind, no waves and we were an hour or two before high tide at 1130. We were headed up river towards Gweek. Initially we passed through the moorings for boats that belonged to the rich and famous. Well. I believe they did. Ahead are a group of canoeists that launched just prior to us and we were steadily gaining on them. Some obviously knew what they were doing others? Well I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination but could see that they had hired a canoe from the beach at £15 an hour and were out giving it some wellie.

Further upriver we pull alongside Tremayne Quay this and the nearby  boathouse are well known to most people who are familiar with the Helford River, but for those who’ve not had the pleasure of visiting this very special place, here’s a little background.



Tremayne Boathouse

Historically, Tremayne has always been associated with Trelowarren Estate. Whilst there has no doubt been a quay located here for a great deal longer, the present structure dates from 1847, built by Sir Richard Vyvyan in preparation for a visit by Queen Victoria. Whilst unfortunately the queen never came, her great grandson, Edward, Duke of Windsor, favoured the quay with a belated royal visit in 1921 when he was Prince of Wales.

The Quay is at the end of a mile long track leading through unspoilt ancient semi-natural and plantation woodland running alongside the HelfordRiver. Some of these woods, notably the mature beech plantation in the valley at the head of the Creek, were planted specifically to impress Queen Victoria prior to her aborted visit in the 1840s. The sessile oak woodlands further down the track were managed as coppice for the charcoal and tannin trade, and like many Cornish oak woodlands, would have been a hive of activity up until the 1920s with bodgers and wood folk managing the woods. Today, the woods are better known for their beauty and tranquillity as well as the abundance of estuarine birds and woodland flora which can be spotted along the way.

The Woods and Quay were bequeathed to the National Trust in 1978 from the Vyvyan family of Trelowarren. Today, it is one of the few public quays on the upper reaches of the river, with public access right down to the riverside.

These days, Tremayne is a popular place for recreation, quiet enjoyment and having fun. Whether it’s walkers stopping for a picnic or just to enjoy the unspoilt views up and down the river, boat users pulling up for a BBQ or overnight stay, or a bunch of youngsters experiencing the wonderful solitude of the river at night with a camping trip, most locals and visitors to Tremayne have fond memories of the place. It’s a place to fish, catch crabs, wild swim, jump in at high tide, make a mud pie and roast marshmallows around the campfire. It’s a place for everyone, for ever.

 



The Old Quay Frenchman's Creek

Frenchman's Creek.

Well that sounds familiar and so it should. Not only is it a real live place on the Helford river but it also a famous novel made into a film of the same name. One in 1944 and another in 1998. For all I know there might well be a stage play of that same name. It was of course written by Daphne du Maurier. Set in Cornwall during the reign of Charles II. It tells the story of a love affair between an impulsive English lady, Dona Lady St Columb and a French pirate Jean-Benoit Aubrey. It runs something like this.............

Dona, Lady St. Columb, makes a sudden visit with her children to Navron, her husband's remote estate in Cornwall, in a fit of disgust with her shallow life in London court society. There she finds that the property, unoccupied for several years, is being used as a base by a notorious French pirate who has been terrorizing the Cornish coast. Let's be realistic here. The only pirates in Cornwall are the Cornish. Dona finds that the pirate, Jean-Benoit Aubéry, is not a desperate character at all, but rather a more educated and cultured man than her own doltish husband, and they fall in love. Here we go! That old story, my husband doesn't understand me!

Dona dresses as a boy, wait for it and joins the pirate crew on an expedition to cut out and capture a richly laden merchant ship belonging to one of her neighbours. The attack is a success, but the news of it brings Dona's husband Harry and his friend Rockingham to Cornwall, disrupting her idyllic romance. Harry, Rockingham, and the other locals meet at Navron to plot how to capture the pirate, but Aubéry and his crew cleverly manage to capture and rob their would-be captors instead. Rockingham, who has had designs on Dona himself, perceives the relationship between her and Aubéry, and Dona is forced to kill him in self-defence when he attacks her in a jealous rage. Meanwhile, Aubéry is captured while trying to return to his ship, and Dona hatches a plot for his release. In the end, however, she realizes that she must remain with her husband and children instead of escaping to France with Aubéry.



 

Sir Fredrick Arthur Montague "Boy" Browning, GVCO, KB, CB, DSO

Was a senior officer in the British Army who has been called the father of the British Airborne Forces. He was  the commander of 1 Airborne Corps and Deputy Commander of First Airborne Army during Operation Market Garden in Sept 1944. During the planning of this operation he memorably said "I think we might be going a bridge too far." He was also an Olympic Bobsleigh competitor and the husband of Dame Daphne du Maurier.

Not a lot of people know that!

Paddling on we spot a potential camp site, it seems somewhat muddy here but we return some time later for lunch when it is not as bad. 

We continue upriver towards Gweek. Soon we hear the deep bark of  a sea lion. It is Gweek Seal Sanctuary.

You can call me Clarence!

 We are now as far as we can go, pretty much. This is Gweek Boat Yard. A euphemism for what I would call a Gypo site on the water. Instead of caravans they have rusting hulks of barges or half rotten hulls from some old yacht or small tug. They have added a mishmash of old double glazing units and tarpaulins and turned this small creek into a floating scrap yard. Still it has a mystical air about it. Passing through Gweek boat yard we rae confronted by a very narrow road bridge. Beneath which flows very little water. We, despite Les's best efforts can go no further. We back paddle and make our way through various muddy channels back to the main river.

It was our intention to stop at the pub but for some reason we didn't. I think we thought we might meet as unsavoury clientele in the pub as was inhabiting the scrapyard!

One of the more interesting craft on the river. 

There is another small river we follow but this soon proves too shallow for us to continue. Here as we make passage up the short navigatable stretch it allows us views into some rather splendid back gardens. Les's comments about us seeming like peeping Toms rings true and we return to the main channel and head off down stream past a huge set of warehouses or is it a factory. It looks deserted! 

The grin says it all!

Merthen Quay.

Looking downriver  from the lunch stop.

Return to the confluence for a lunch stop. We sit on the "beach" but after lunch a short wander uphill provides us with this wonderful view. Complete with old railway sleeper seat. What a fantastic view back down Helford Passage. It is here we watch a few canoeists glide past with the occasional motor boat pottering slowly upstream. At the head of the creek there is a guy fishing. He casts some distance out into the river. I make a mental note to stay well clear when we launch.



Lured ashore by the Wreckers.

Who says Cornish Wreckers are no longer at work! These are treacherous waters Jim lad. Best ye keep a weather eye open!

Newton is best remembered for his portrayal of the feverish-eyed Long John Silver in the 1950 film adaptation of Treasure Island, the film that became the standard for screen portrayals of historical pirates. He would continue to portray Blackbeard in 1952 and Long John Silver again in the 1954 film of the same name, which spawned a miniseries in the mid 50s. Hailing from the West Country in south west England, his exaggeration of his West Country accent is credited with popularising the stereotypical "pirate voice".^[2][3] Newton has become the "patron saint" of the annual International Talk Like a Pirate Day.^[4]



Durgan Beach  (NT Glendurgan)

Trebah Beach


In 1944, the beach was used as an embarkation point for a regiment of 7,500 of the 29th US Infantry Division for the assault landing on Omaha beach, part of the D -Day Landings.
At the end of the war there was a succession of changes of ownership. The Martin family cleared the moor at the bottom and introduced the massed planting of Hydrangeas.
The Boathouse is situated on the beach, this was originally built by the racing driver and designer of Healey cars, Donald Healey, to store his boats when he lived at Trebah in the 1960s. Donald Healey was also responsible for removing the infrastructure and concrete installed during WW2 and undertaking improvements to the lower lakes.

http://www.adept-seo.co.uk/inshore-patrol-flotilla/ 


 The weather national structure camping 4 guys have struck camp and loading into two motor boats one with extended arm as presumed bond film?!! Out to trebah point tank loading platforms. Chk cave back to beach out o water in minutes mike to collect van hoping land rover and trailer is clear of beach and road. Back to mall then Cornwall canoes atGrampound Rd. Higginbotham for 1700hrs circle refuge n from beach 1730 mike Mayes brew and washes wetsuit.