Colin White Gets Stuck up Lerryn Creek - Despite Two Paddles
When I saw Mr H's post from the last day of July (Walk 7 – Lerryn to St Winnow circular) which took us on a walking adventure around Lerryn Creek, it rather took me back half a century or so to a little misadventure of my own.
I'm sure it doesn't need stating, but today we'd have been more prepared for the journey with, at the very least; two mobile phones in waterproof cases, more suitable clothing and life jackets, and we'd have told people where we were heading and when we were due back.
But back then…
Lerryn mud
It started off such a lovely day. A warm, gentle, up-river summer wind, fluffy clouds scudding across an azure blue … well, you get the idea.
Pete and I loved Lerryn cream teas. Back then, before they invented cholesterol, the mark of a quality cream tea was when a great dish of freshly-curled butter, sitting in a bowl of iced-water, was served with the scone, clotted cream and jam. Presumably this was just in case we found the scones a little dry. We arrived, as usual by inflatable. Not our own of course, but one hired from one of the prominent Fowey ’emmet’ boat hire companies; Bert’s Boats. We were on school holidays and camping in Polruan, pretending to be adults; and, since we came down to Fowey so regularly, also pretending to be locals. We thought we knew everyone of note in Fowey, and they knew us. But we weren’t locals, and where we came from, they didn’t have much in the way of tides, there not actually being any sea nearby.
As soon as we left the Lerryn tea shoppe and looked at the river (or lack thereof) we knew it was going to be touch-and-go. And when a river looks ‘touch-and-go’, you don’t stand a cat-in-hells chance. Still, with a sense of hope only surpassed by our naivety, we jumped into the inflatable and pulled the Seagull starter rope. As ever, it started first pull and we putt-putted away from the bank … until we grounded … about one and a half metres from terra firma, and about fifty metres from the only remaining deep, sea-going channel. Not to be defeated, we raised the outboard and rowed earnestly and just about made it all the way out to that last remaining channel…which, in the meantime had reduced to a trickle. We were stuck, more-or-less in the middle of the hundred-metre wide river, watching the water rapidly receding around the river bend. It had beaten us.
Luckily, we had a basic knowledge of oceanography and calculated that the water would return to collect us in – well, about four hours, or maybe six hours .. or, indeed, anything in between (I did say ‘a basic knowledge’). It was 3 pm and we were on holiday. No problem. We could easily kill that time by talking:
planning the rest of our holidays,
what we thought of the latest Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young album,
the best beer in The Lugger (I’m not sure we were even 16 years old at the time. Ah, those halcyon days!),
how, if we were going to score, it would have to be with the local girls, and certainly not with those horrible emmet-types.
And so, we sat on our individual varnished plank seating as the Mississippi quickly turned into what could only be described as a Salt Lake bed, only with a two-metre deep quicksand base. Not a soul in sight on either bank, and no other boats. Well, there wouldn’t be, would there? Our acute embarrassment in being such ’emmets’ remained unstated by either of us, although we were considering the consequences of our foolishness. If the boatmen thought there was any chance we had actually headed in the opposite direction and out to sea, the RNLI might be involved. We listened for the sound of the double rockets. We awaited the sound of a rescue helicopter.
It was about 5 pm when we realised what absolute unmitigated embarrassment felt like. We heard a vehicle. It was a flat-back car and it had driven down an, as yet, unnoticed small concrete slipway on the far side of the riverbed. A guy got out. I know it sounds stupid, but some ridiculous notion of rescue came into our heads. He donned waders and recovered a spade and bucket from the back of his truck. He waded out into the muddy riverbed and then proceeded to dig into the pliant sand and, occasionally, he extricated a lugworm and dropped it into his bucket. He was shortly joined by more cars on the slipway, and who were, presumably, his colleagues from some sea angling club. They too were bait-diggers. They fanned out from the slipway. We could do nothing but watch.
Incidentally, two other facts you should know about our predicament; both will become more relevant later in the tale. Firstly, we were wearing only shorts and a tee shirt. Secondly, we had a tin of baked beans. Don’t ask me how this came into our possession. There must have been a little shop in Lerryn, or maybe the cream tea shoppe itself sold simple comestibles. I really don’t know, and how it was acquired isn’t central to the plot anyway.
Meanwhile, those bait collecting characters continued to fan out from the river bank and, as they did so, they progressed across the riverbed getting ever closer to our vessel. Well, I say ‘closer’ but, as stated, they were utilising this fanning arrangement, so they weren’t so much approaching us, as beginning to surround us,
Now comes the real dilemma. AT WHICH POINT, IF SUCH A POINT EXISTS, DO YOU CHOOSE TO OPEN A CONVERSATION? When you are at shouting distance perhaps? Or may be, at normal conversation volume distance? How about when one or more of them is actually alongside you and scrutinising your bilge?
And, once the decision on appropriate timing has been taken, what do you actually say?
“Do you come here often” is just absurdly inane.
How about “The tide caught us out.” Nope; they just might have worked that one out for themselves.
“Do you see many boats stuck in the middle of this creek?” Hell no! That would really make us sound like imbecilic emmets.
I opted for a, ‘Hi.’ It was meant to be conveyed in that cool and laid-back style that sixteen-year-olds think is appropriate. It sounded more like a cross between Frank Spencer and Kenneth Williams. As it turned out, attempting to communicate anyway was a gross error of judgement. They had totally ignored us before my welcoming salutation. That, in hindsight, should have been a sign. They certainly continued to ignore us after it. By ignore, I mean, we were totally invisible to them. Not even so much as a side-ways glance, let alone some facial expression suggesting that we were moronic idiots. As they continued around the boat on their way to the opposite bank, digging trenches that formed ephemeral patterned channels in the mud bed, we learnt another valuable lesson. No; we could not have got out of the boat and lifted it back to the bank. The bait diggers had special boots and they still sank down to waist-level. We had no option but to sit it out. We chose to ignore their presence as they re-passed us on their return to the slipway
The way the brain operates is weird. Maybe a qualified psychiatrist could explain why Pete and I felt it necessary not to talk to each other while the diggers were within hearing range. We just starred at each other; not at the baiters, not even beyond our gunnels. I’m sure our self-imposed silence did nothing to ameliorate our embarrassment.
One at a time, the cars left. We were on our own again. But we knew the tide had turned and the sea was on its way to rescue us. And just how did we know this? The wind velocity abruptly increased to about Beaufort Number 3 or 4. Not in itself a problem, but accompanying it was a significant temperature drop. Yes, it was now cold. But we were okay; we were sixteen…ish. An hour later, as the sun was visibly dropping behind the curving river bank, we weren’t okay. We were really, actually quite cold.
Pete and I never argued. That’s why we would always go on holiday together. But we must have argued then. Don’t ask me what about. All I remember is him threatening to wallop me over the head with what he thought was the only weapon on board; an oar. But he had forgotten the can of baked beans. I picked it up ready to counter the attack. But by now, and being nearly sixteen, we were hungry. So we forgot our hostility, and returned to the possibility that we might be able to crack the tin open with something sharp. We tried smashing it on one of the metal protrusions on the Seagull. We gave up on that, largely because we had no plasters or bandages on board. Those old iron rowlocks would have made short work of the Heinz 57, but our rowlocks were of the innovative reinforced composite rubber types.
We sat.
By the time we saw the tidal bore heading our way we were shivering and probably hyperthermic. Still, just as the moon is wont to obey the rules of planetary motion, so our path home reappeared. Once the underside of the boat had dislodged, we putt-putted into the wind, arriving back at the Fowey jetty just around dusk. No welcoming party; no one to throw a foil blanket over us and give us a mug of steaming cocoa. Equally, no one to express concern as to where we had been all this time. ‘Bert the Boat’ had long since abandoned his post and returned to his cottage, oblivious to our absence. We would have to return in the morning to pay him his hire fees. Neither he, nor anyone else seemed at all concerned about our absence. Did they know what happened? Did they care. But what about those furtive glances from the remaining quayside traders? Were they thinking, “Bloody idiot emmets”? Nooo. Surely that was just our frozen imagination playing tricks; clearly no one either knew or cared where we had been, or how long we had been out there. Under the circumstances, we thought it best to just fade away.
We decided not to stop off for a drink, but to head directly along the Esplanade and back on the passenger ferry for Polruan. We would pick up some pollock and chips from the chippy just up from Polruan Quay, and then get back up the hill to the campsite. It was only 9pm and two hours before the last ferry. But, the way we felt, we just wanted to be on the same side of the river as our sleeping bags, and as soon as possible
We walked the half mile from Fowey Quay to the Polruan Ferry jetty, and wandered into the blockhouse shelter while we waited for the water taxi. In there were two girls who we had noticed only the day before loitering outside The King of Prussia. Not what you might call pretty in a cute sense, but they possessed a certain worldliness (they may have been as old as eighteen). Perhaps it was that free-spirited mysticism so commonly found among the daughters of the local boatmen (Yea, right!). But more importantly, they were definitely local, and so were, in our minds, highly eligible. Pete and I had well-practised chat-up lines ready, just for such occasions as these. We looked at each other; the signal to start. One of the girls beat us to our routine and cut us dead with five short words “You got back OK then”.
We both just about managed a shrug and a one word response: “Yep”
Lerryn stepping stones
