CSCC Reports 2011: Isle of Sheppey Circumnavigation - 22^nd to 23^rd October 2011

Stephen, Marc, Gavin and Rob headed to the Isle of Sheppey on Friday evening with a view to paddling around the island over two days.  After a late departure from Chiswick we arrived in Sheppey at about 10pm with nowhere booked to camp.  Although there are plenty of camp sites marked on the map most of them seem to be focussed on caravans (static and touring).  We eventually pitched tents at about midnight and were lulled to sleep by the sound of joyracers driving around the local roads at top speeds. 

An early start saw us having a fry up in Tescos and then heading to the north coast of the island to start paddling.  Marc had packed his boat beforehand but the rest of us took some time packing all our kit in our boats as we had chosen not to shuttle a car to our destination.

We headed east along the north coast, taking advantage of the outgoing tide.  The north coast of Sheppey is quite pretty, with low grassy cliffs, and even the odd bit of sand and shingle, although the further the tide went out, the more we were separated from solid land by acres of Thames mud.  As we turned south west along the east coast, the land got flatter, the wind was in our faces, and the tide seemed to swirl around, giving us no assistance, and rather be against us.

At the south eastern point of the island, Shell Ness, we rested on a shingle bank covered with mussels, hoping that the tide would turn to take us round the tip of the island into the Swale.  Unfortunately, the tide seemed to still be going out (it was now over 7 hours after high tide at Sheerness) and we battled on against the still falling tide.  By this time, the wind had got up to at least 20 mph and we now found ourselves struggling with the weathercocking effect of a cross wind.  We reached the Harty Ferry Inn - our destination for the night at about 4.45pm.  Luckily, the pub was open, and allows campers  to camp for free in a small field next to the car park (providing you eat at the pub).  The campsite, food, and hospitality at the pub were all excellent.  We had a good night's sleep, breakfasted at the pub, and set off further west down the Swale.  The wind was stronger than before but still from the South and weathercocking plagued us all except Marc, whose new boat, helped by a rudder, seemed to track like a dream. 

The rest of us battled on, paddling only on the left side.  Rob remembered that the Avocet and Aquanaut both had skegs but we were unable to deploy them on the water. When we stopped for some lunch we managed to free the skegs and when we set off again, these boats seemed to track much better.  Stephen was still struggling with his skegless Shoreline, at one stage resorting to pull his boat across a mud bank rather than paddle round it.

As the channel narrowed and we started to turn north round the west of the island, things got a bit easier with the wind behind us.  We had another brief stop at Kingsferry Bridge, where Stephen transferred as much weight as possible into the rear compartment, which did seem to improve the weathercocking.

We stopped at Queensborough, and got a taxi back to our cars.  We had not made it quite all the way round the island but we felt we had earned a break after battling with the wind.

Lessons:

• The tides around Sheppey are tricky;
• A strong side wind makes most boats weathercock and makes the paddling very tiring;
• Skegs help a lot to couteract weathercocking;
• Moving the load to the rear of a boat also helps.