There & Back Again - Felixstore to the Walton Backwaters
Published: July 2009 | Written by: Peter Jones
We planned to meet at Felixstowe at 9am for a 9.30 start. Being a bit early Bob and I sat in McDonalds for a welcome early morning cup of coffee as we watched all the paddlers each winding round the roundabout; somebody went round twice. Then we met the others at the car park to the north of Languard Fort. Parking was free with a toilet and a very short carry to the beach.
It was a warm morning with light wind forecast to pick up a bit in the afternoon. High water was predicted at 1100 so we would have the tide with us there and back and a wind at our backs for the return journey.
We followed the coast down to Landguard point and chose a time and track to cross the busy shipping channel to the busy Harwich port.
We cleared the channel at Cliff Foot buoy and settled into enjoying the day. The clouds were showing off and the water was really smooth calm, at times with hardly a ripple. All is good with the world..
Whenever I think of East Anglia I usually think of oozing mud trying to suck the shoes from your feet. But today you could be fooled into thinking you were in some other paradise as the surf gently washed onto the yellow sandy beach enticing the kayaks to land and have lunch.
The views from the beach at Stone Point were great - the land being so flat you can see a long way. Walton channel, the Naze, Titchmarsh marina and across to Harwich.
A nice leisurely lunch in the sunshine and a quick repair to a broken rudder and we launched again turning left into Walton channel past the row of scuttled barges. I think they put them there to stop erosion. We then turned right into one of the many channels keeping Horsey Island to our right with a view to joining the Twizzle. We paddled on against the retreating tide looking for the way through to the Twizzle. We later found that all the channels connecting the river had been blocked with a wall. Those pesky Romans. In the end it was decided that a short portage across the mud was the answer. So we pulled the boats across to the mud and launched again. Unfortunately with the tide ebbing the heaviest boat got stuck. I tried to shift it but couldn’t do it. But we were not to be stuck there as spectres forever haunting the mists of the backwaters. Alan, errant knight from Yarmouth, saved the day and towed them out, and we headed down the Twizzle and out to sea.
We hugged the coast more on our way back to Felixstowe, and the cumulus began building and the wind grew stronger. We were making really speed with the tide and wind in our favour, and passed a seal who probably got a whiff of Alans aftershave. I started quietly humming yellow submarine by the Beatles. Then we turned towards home more into a beam sea, and the sea began to build, until I thought better of humming as the sea washed over the deck. It started to get exciting. For some reason I like paddling through waves and these were now about two feet high and requiring the odd brace. Bob remembered which buoy we should be heading for, and as we crossed the shipping channel the waves got a little higher. It was now time to play chicken with the bigger vessels in the channel.
Once out of the channel and past Languard point the sea settled down and I decided it really was time to replace my leaking spraydeck as the boat was quite tippy by now. We landed almost at the right beach at about 3.30 to conclude an eventful and thoroughly enjoyable paddle. We had made it there and back again.