On reading of the Windermere cruise organised by Mike and Janet Brenton when the WCOA cruising programme was published early in 2005 it seemed the ideal ‘Swallows and Amazons’ partner to the Broads cruise Andy Peter lead in April.

My daughter Niamh and I have been reading through the Arthur Ransome ‘Swallows and Amazons’ books during the winter and have got as far as Pigeon Post, the sixth in the series, so Niamh now feels she knows the lake district quite well, despite never having been north of Birmingham before. I know the area quite well from rather cider soaked college holidays bivvy’ing along the east coast of Coniston Water and was keen for Niamh to be able to put the books in a proper context.

Our weekend on the broads, following in the wake of Tom Dudgeon and the Death and Glories around Potter Heigham proved successful, so we made up our mind to travel north in May to explore both Coniston and Windermere, as the settings used for the northern stories.

I booked the Friday before the weekend of the Windermere cruise as annual leave and completed the necessary forms to get Niamh a day out of school. Our original plan of setting off up north on the Thursday evening to get a whole extra day on the lakes fell foul of work commitments in London all day Thursday, so we left our home in Dorset at about 9:30 am with the car well packed and boat snugged down for a long journey north.

I estimated six hours of travelling to cover the 300 odd miles on that day, and would have bettered that estimate had not the M6 gods been against us. The motorway was closed in front of us twice between Birmingham and Kendal, meaning we didn’t pull into Coniston until 17:00 that afternoon, 7 ½ hours after leaving home.

I had called ahead to the Coniston Boating Centre to check launching fees and closing time of the slipway, and was lucky to get the boat off the road trailer and through the barrier before the staff locked up and went home shortly after 17:30.

The Lakeland Authority Boating centre, found very close to the centre of Coniston village (Turn left just after the BP garage heading south out of the village and keep going til you get to the water) was staffed by most accommodating Lakeland Authority people who waited until after their normal knocking off time to make sure we were on the slipway OK and waived the overnight charge for tying up alongside the public jetty and our parking fee. They also let me pay them our launching fee on our return to the slipway the next day (£6) so we didn’t have to rush around the town finding change on the evening of our arrival.

Once the boat centre staff had left, we rigged Joshua in gentle drizzle, set the boom tent with her still on the slipway (easier than fishing about inside in the dark reaching for Velcro straps with the boat yawing about in the breeze) and then ran her down the concrete slip into Coniston, securely tying her alongside the leeward side of the jetty in the lively breeze.

Our plan A had been to sail straight down to the south end of the lake Friday afternoon and camp aboard pulled ashore within the harbour of Wildcat (Peel) island, as used by the adventurers of Ransome’s books. However, with our delayed arrival, the increasing drizzle and a solid 4/5 southerly blowing straight up the lake we settled for a night afloat at Coniston before making for the island in the morning.

Pasta with tomatoes and cheese with apples for pudding washed down with milky coffee for me and hot chocolate for the crew was followed by a trip to the public loos hard by the slipway (open all night) and then we tucked ourselves in for a noisy night.

Whilst we had hidden ourselves away behind the stone jetty as close to the slipway as possible, the boat was still moving around a bit on wavelets sneaking around the corner of the jetty, and they were slapping noisily under her stern throughout the night.

To keep her settled and quieten things down somewhat I moored us securely with tight springs fore and aft, running from a hitch around the adjuster plates at the base of the shrouds to posts on the jetty well fore and aft of the bow and stern lines. These meant that she no longer surged back and forward along the jetty, but sat in one place and I was able to rig one fender amidships to hold her off the wooden pilings, which otherwise struck her gunwale with a sickening regularity that would have ruled out any sleep and damaged the boat tent where it ran over the rubbing strake.

With the drizzle becoming steady rain we read a few chapters of George’s Marvellous Medicine (Didn’t bring the hard back Arthur Ransome books for fear of getting them damp) brushed our teeth with lake water and snuggled down in our two sleeping bags each to listen to the noise of raindrops thundering on the canvas accompanying Question Time on radio 4.

The extra padding of two layers of sleeping bag under us made for a comfy night, plenty warm enough too. Coming too at around 7:00 with the rain still thundering down, our plans for the day seemed rather hopeful, indeed the prospect of cowering under a tent in the rain all weekend before slogging back down the M6 to Dorset seemed rather depressing. Weather forecasts on our wind-up radio that morning confirmed my worst fears as high winds and rain with thunderstorms were forecast for the whole weekend. Still, at least the tent was keeping most of the water out, only dripping where the water was wicking down the tie-backs for the door on the port side – directly above my bed…

Ignoring the weather we packed away our bedding and brewed up some porridge on the butane stove, followed by a kettle of boiling water for coffee, warm orange juice, washing up and to fill the thermos with hot water for use later in the day should we need it.

Once the breakfast things were tidied away, the rain had slackened off and we emerged to find dog walkers aplenty on the foreshore and many ducklings being chivvied around the shallows by their parents.

Giving the wind as much time as possible to blow the tent dry, we packed our bedding and all unnecessary ‘stuff’ in the car, tidied ship and dressed in our foul weather gear ready for the lively beat 5 miles down the lake to Wildcat Island.

Wanting to be away before 9:30 when the sailing centre would come to life and the jetty / slipway becomes busy, we hoisted sail with the reef in the main and warped around to face out across the lake.

Conditions, once out of the shelter of the wide bay we had slept in, were wet and lively with many white horses surging up the lake. I soon furled the jib as we were over pressed frequently and we thrashed back and forth under reefed main alone, centreboard half up balancing the helm and heeling us less, making a couple of hundred yards good on each board across the width of the lake.

Water was coming aboard in significant quantities over the windward bow as the chop slapped against the bow, unfortunately most of it being collected by my diminutive crew and she soon began to complain of damp feet and soggy rear. While she remained chatty and singing along to some interminable tune I was satisfied she wasn’t getting cold, but as we neared Peel island after nearly two hours lively sailing she became more quiet and withdrawn, a sure sign that she was now becoming cold.

My choices were to come ashore on the choppy west coast where the beach seemed gentler than the eastern shore or make the last two boards into the sheltered narrow stretch of water between the island and the eastern shore where I knew we would be able to pull up safely in quieter water and leave the boat to explore and get warm. I kept on for the island, but the last two tacks seemed to take forever, with a shivering and less than happy Niamh now snugged down as far under the foredeck as possible to keep her out of the wind and wrapped up in a sail bag and my waterproof trousers.

Running into the shelter of the island from the north we were relieved to run our bow up the tiny beach at the ‘landing place’, tie our painter to a handy tree, re-adjust our berth to remove the mast from an oak tree above (That’s another bent burgee to add to the collection) and then jump ship to get the blood moving again. Niamh by this time was very shivery and distinctly unhappy about her lot. I broke out the thermos of hot water to brew her a mug of hot orange juice, piled on another layer of fleece under her breathable cag and then route marched her round the island for 15 minutes to get her warm.

Returning warmth and the strangely familiar island soon helped Niamh forget her bad mood and we climbed all over the small island identifying the lookout point, campsite and secret harbour with cross carved in a tree from our bed time stories of the past months. We took lots of pictures for the album and then set about creating our time capsule to mark our visit.

Using a 35mm film canister and an A5 sheet of paper, we recorded our visit to the island in the most solemn legalese and nautical phrases we could muster, decorated the sheet with liberal numbers of skulls, crossbones and swallows, before signing it, sealing it and burying it somewhere we hope to be able to find it again in many years time. Rather than draw a map (we had just buried our only piece of paper) we took a picture of Niamh pointing at the spot where we buried the message in the hope that this will remind us where to dig when we return.

This done, we had some lunch, picked some litter as a thank you to the island for its hospitality and then decided to row Joshua round to try out the harbour for size. Getting afloat again without further attentions from the overhanging oaks, it was a good pull against the southerly wind to clear south of the off lying rocks before drifting north on the wind into the arms of the secret harbour, polling our way the last 50 yards with an oar, past a screeching Oyster catcher (‘Peepa bird’ in Niamh parlance) defending its nest on the largest rocky outcrop to our right.

Just as we scrunched ashore in the perfectly peaceful harbour our solitude was rudely disturbed by about a dozen soggy teenagers in kayaks paddling their wobbly way into the harbour, before abandoning their craft all around our dinghy and splashing off to leap into the freezing waters from the rocks outside the harbour mouth. After 20 minutes or so they seemed to have had enough of freezing cold water torture and returned shivering and dripping to tip out their canoes and wobble off to the next adventure…peace returned, along with the rather miffed peepa bird and we prepared to make our way back up the lake.

We were supposed to have met up with the other WCOA Windermere cruise participants at 10:00 that morning at Ferry Nab near Bowness. Our late arrival on Friday and determination to ‘discover’ Wildcat Island meant that we had long missed that appointment, phoning Janet on the mobile during our soggy beat down the lake to give our apologies.

We now planned to run back up the lake, quickly de-rig and drive round the Grizedale forest to Ambleside and Bowness where we would re-launch and try to catch up with the WCOA cruisers later in the afternoon.

By now the sun was out and the day was really becoming rather gorgeous, not at all as forecast. With a good force 4 still blowing up the lake and under a blazing and drying sun we poled our way back between the encircling rocks, unfurled the jib and lazily bore away up the lake, in pursuit of three rather strange looking catamarans made up of Canadian canoes lashed together using larch poles, sporting a short mast and spinnaker-like nylon sails, being piloted up the lake by happy and noisy crews of more adventurous teenagers. Stopping briefly to hoist the main, as progress under jib alone seemed rather too sedate for the conditions, we rapidly overhauled the canoes, to the loud strains of ‘Everywhere we go…’ being belted out from one boat to another.

With the reefed main well out on the port tack we raced up the lake, bailers slurping away noisily at the water brought aboard during the morning beat. In no time at all we had passed the towering Old Man of Coniston (Kanchenjunga) to port and were rounding up to the beach by the jetty where we had spent the previous night. Just as we arrived the Coniston steam launch departed with much whooping of whistle and feathery steam.

Coming ashore we found the kind folk from the sailing centre had located our launching trolley for us and brought it down to the waters edge ready for recovery and we set about getting the boat de-rigged and ready for towing round the mountains to Windermere. By 13:30 we were all packed up and ready to roll, with the sun beating down and feeling thoroughly poached in our waterproofs and fleecy layers left over from the morning, having struggled puffing and blowing up the steep and soft foreshore being watched by languid tourists taking tea at the local beach cafe.

We found the Sailing Centre a most accommodating base, with useful facilities like a café and clean public loos right on the foreshore. Coniston is a 2 minute drive away with shop and pubs close by. The lake was deserted in the early morning, only getting fractionally busier as the adventure centres got afloat around 11:00. Whilst the wind was strong we coped easily enough under reefed main for the long beat up the lake and the unexpected sun was very welcome for most of the day.

Wildcat (Peel) island really is a magical place, exactly as set out in the books and somewhere I would love to have spent the Friday night…I’m sure we’ll be back some time however, if only to find and add more names to the list in our time capsule – Max my 3 year old wants to come with us next time.

We caught up with the two other Wanderers on Windermere that Saturday afternoon, joined the crews for dinner in Bowness, spent a much calmer night afloat off Ferry Nab (in the rain again) and spent a sunny Sunday exploring the islands and eastern shore north of the Steamboat museum in company with Wanderers ‘Cotopaxi’ and ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ complete with a campfire on the beach for lunch and some exciting sailing through the ‘islands off Rio’ in gusty conditions, before thundering back down the M6 / M5 and arriving tired but happy at 10:30 that night.

Report & all Photos - Tim Robertson W1038 May 2005