Some musings on my summer 'Yealm trip'

My first planned trip this summer will be past the Plymouth breakwater (oh Lordy me....real deep water stuff!) and around to the east beyond the Great Mewstone to the next river along – the Yealm. Gosh – I’ll be fully exposed (dreadful thought – sorry) to the prevailing south westerly winds so I’d better choose tide and weather conditions carefully. There is some interesting navigation to get right. Firstly no short cuts between the Mewstone and the Wembury ledges! When rounding the Gt. Mewstone – not cutting back inside rapidly...otherwise an interesting end could happen on the outer and inner Slimers! I know that it is important to then make a controlled approach on 088 degrees transit towards the mouth of the Yealm (lining up with two white pillars in Cellars beach..I think they have white triangular top marks and a black vertical line on each) because there is a very nasty sandbar stretching a fair way across it and consequently a very narrow channel. I think the waypoint information is something like Safe Distance WP 50:18'.591N 004:05'.00W Outer Red Buoy marking sandbar: 50:18'.59N 004:04' but please check that because I’m still learning how to do charts and use my GPS. A quick look at the chart for that area shows that the southern tip of the sand bar is marked by a lit buoy. Someone told me you have to stay pretty close to this buoy to avoid the rocky foreshore opposite. Anyway I won’t bore you with the rest of the pilotage – partly because I’ve still got to get my head around it myself .......but I will be spending plenty of time poring over the charts before that trip! Now one of the reasons for this careful scrutiny is because of this..........

The yellow track shows the line of approach to avoid the bar

which juts out from the northern coastline where the little pointed headland is

I can remember last summer watching from season point, whilst fishing for bass......a yacht took a short cut across that bar. Now I knew not what kind of yacht it was ....but I knew it had a great deep keel and I knew it would end in grief because I was fishing a falling spring tide and we were three hours into the fall and I could see the bar exposing itself! I definitely don’t know what was in the head of that skipper – but the crunch could be heard several hundred metres away. Suffice to say over the next few hours I felt deeply for that poor guy. The boat keeled over; it got swirled around and bounced about; the side railings got ripped away in one place – the paint was scrapped off or is that ‘sanded’ off.......boy my heart went out to him and there was no one coming to his aid.

I obtained the map extract from the Ordnance survey 'get-a-map' facility and it remains their copyright. I add it here to help you locate cellars beach, season point, Newton creek etc etc.

The Yealm is a pretty river – it rises on Dartmoor and flows down through the village of Yealmpton where it then becomes tidal. The villages of Noss Mayo and Newton Ferrers are found on opposite banks...and let’s face it – it’s a fantastic place to live I suspect!

Looking along the mouth of the Yealm

Copyright for photograph belongs to Bob Harris

A long time ago oysters were cultivated on the muds but then it became polluted in the ‘80’s. It’s much cleaner now and I think oyster farming has started again. However with new developments like the Langage power station development at Plympton and the proposed Sherford Newtown plan in the upper catchment area........I guess the river will suffer again!

Copyright belongs to Robin Lucas

A pretty natural deepwater harbour....and sheltered too - ideal for an onboard

overnight camping trip!

You can see from the aerial photographs that it is a great natural harbour. Most of it is deepish water and doesn’t dry out although Newton creek off to the east does. There is no marina but there are pontoons and swinging moorings. I’m told you can cross Newton Creek at low tide – my experience doesn’t bear that out...I remember when I had my first home built Canadian canoe ‘Chakotay’.......wading through feet of mud to get to the dolphin pub because I had miscalculated the tides ( a real Homer ‘doh’ moment!) and providing hours of amusement to the pub goers on the terrace....not one of whom volunteered to come and rescue me as I lay face down in ooze...............several times!! I learned my lesson that day – triple check you’ve read the tide tables correctly and you’ve calculated for adding BST! Believe me, given every houseowner in Newton ferrers and Noss Mayo probably owns a boat and definitely has a harbour mooring or two.........there really is no worse a place to humiliate yourself!

 I really can't wait until summer is here! My first summer dinghy cruising and camping......wondefful - the kind of thing dreams are made of.....well mine anyway!

Steve