Boatman's dream 1

The nearby trickle of water made me sleepy, and I stretched myself out on musty blue cushions – head in the bow, feet aft, high clouds crossing the open hatch. 

An old four-engined aircraft droned overhead. Air display, probably. World War 2 heavy bomber.

It wasn’t long before I was snoring gently, heard only by a family of ducks and Dave, the live-aboard next door.

By the time I came to, water was lapping steadily against the hull.  I’d slept through the magic half hour or so where the tide floods the Axe and the Pill.  It was probably the gentle sensation of being floated off the mud that roused me.  No time to waste.  In three hours, the boats would be settling back into their berths.

I relished the feeling of being afloat as I rolled off the bed and emerged into the cockpit.  Around the yard, boats began their twice-daily animation.

I switched on the fuel and ignition and turned the engine over.  It’s a rough and ready old thing of suspicious provenance – the serial number has been removed – but it always starts with a few turns and settles down to a steady tick-over. 

The boat’s secured to the pontoon fore and aft.  I untied the stern-line, then looped the bow-line around its cleat so I could recover it.  A quick look round and I set the engine slow astern, backing out of the pontoon.  There’s just enough room to swing without grounding on the opposite bank.

Once the prow was pointing along the Pill I engaged forward and eased out of the boatyard.  Dave was tinkering in the cockpit of Skylark.  I gave him a wave.

It’s a gentle motor down the Pill to reach the confluence with the Axe.  As you look around, it strikes you what a beautiful place this is on the margin of salt marsh, river, estuary and open sea.  To landward lie the outer reaches of the Mendip hills. 

Knowing the shifting channel and the lie of sand bars and wrecks brings an intimacy with the water and the land.  It’s an ancient knowledge picked up from local boatmen.

I took a wide passage into the bend where the Pill joins the Axe.  High water was still an hour and a half away, but there was already plenty of water under the boat. 

A mast was moving up-river above the grass bank to my right.  Probably someone coming in from an overnight in Cardiff.  I eased to starboard to give him room to pass.  Red to red.

Steering into the Axe, I could see it was Harry on “Lost Again”.  Harry was a never-ending source of old sea-dog tales.  Mostly calamitous.  We waved.

Moorings occupy both banks of the river.  The incoming tide was rushing through mid-stream and vibrating mooring lines.  I saw Mark and Sarah rowing up beyond the Pill towards their yacht.  Going with the tide makes easy work of rowing, but a half decent wind can break your heart.  I eased the throttle open a little to push through the current.

As we approached the beach, the boat encountered the first swell of the incoming sea – short and shallow.  The fore and aft rocking developed into longer undulations as we made our way out along the edge of Brean Down, past Angel Rock.  Blackrock and its colony of gulls and waders passed to starboard.

The breeze was light and the swell flat and even as we emerged into the bay, just a slight rough patch towards the end of the Down where it collapses into a tumble of rocks.  The fast tidal currents over submerged rock produce impressive rapids extending about a quarter of a mile out.

I steered starboard towards Cardiff, clearly visible across ten miles of open water, and pushed the throttle open.  The engine lifted the bow and raised the hull onto the plane.  Once up, with the boat skimming at twenty knots, I eased the throttle back.  These engines drink fuel at this speed, but I was planning to look for somewhere out in deep water to drift for a while.

On a whim, I pointed the boat at the island of Steep Holm, five miles out.  There’s an invisible diagonal line between the Somerset coast and Wales that demarcates the Severn Estuary and the Bristol Channel – I’m not sure where – perhaps it’s where the water changes from brown to blue.

It took fifteen or twenty minutes to reach Steep Holm.  I love the feel of deep water under the boat.  Flat hulls are not great in rougher seas, but conditions were near perfect. 

For Westoners, sailing around the far side of Steep Holm is like flying around the dark side of the moon.  As we approached the island, its pebble beach, abandoned cottages and barracks became visible.  I followed it around, about half a mile to starboard. 

A commercial shipping channel leading to Bristol’s deep water ports runs between Steep Holm and its twin, Flat Holm, on the Welsh side.  Huge vessels making upwards of twenty knots pass through on the flood and ebb tides.  If you blink, you can miss them and the chances are they won’t see you.

I rounded the south-westerly tip of Steep Holm and saw a large ship lying at anchor.  You often see them further down the Channel, beyond Aberthaw power station, waiting for the tide or for pilots from Avonmouth. 

I slowed to look.  It was a naval vessel – battleship grey – too big for a Royal Navy ship these days.  It had an odd shape: lattice-work communication tower; the disposition of the guns; the fact that it had guns at all.  It could have been something the US Navy had sold-on.  I tried to see the flag, but the stern was upstream and away from me.  I wasn’t going to get any closer in case someone was trigger-happy.  These are strange times.