Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Tuesday, 27 May 2014

The Exe Valley Country Park

A nice bike ride from Exeter Canal Quay down to  the Turf Inn and back along the old Exeter Ship canal; passing Topsham on the way....once England's second busiest port!

looking back up the Exeter ship canal towards Exeter

one of the canal's residents

a little community of boats is found at the lock gate end where it joins the river Exe

some have 'an interesting' style


the turf inn
it was rather nice sitting on the left hand side with our backs up against the pub shingles
 
watching the Topsham ferry winding its way down river

looking across the estuary towards Topsham with old boat wrecks in the foreground

looking down river towards Exmouth

the Penzance - Paddington railway line runs on the embankment behind the boats


the lock entrance to the Exeter ship canal


on our cycle ride back we came upon this old gem. I think, but I may be wrong here, that this is an old WW2 motor torpedo boat

wasn't much protection for the crew, from cold, waves, bullets or splinters
 
 

2 comments:

Joel Bergen said...

Wow!!!! Now those are beautiful! What a spectacular area. Have you taken Arwen through that area yet?

steve said...

Way outside my normal sailing area, about fifty miles up coast to east. Sailing through the narrow exe estuary mouth at exmouth is not for the faint hearted!
Can't get onto the ship canal. They rarely open the lock gates nowadays. You negotiate a few swinging bridges and have to arrange for bridge keepers to be present. The canal runs right up to Exeter quays where there is a small boatyard, an adventure centre and a few more moored boats.

I am lucky. I live in one of the best areas in the UK. But then people from Yorkshire, way up north would say the same; and frankly, the welsh would claim Wales was God's last effort on the planet..he created it on a Saturday and rested on the Sunday because he knew he'd finally created perfection!

Steve