Three Granddaughters Sail to Wildcat Island
A Real Swallows and Amazons Experience
By Jennifer Muscott
(Click here for info on the book Swallows and Amazons)
For some time I had heard the refrain, “Gran, can we go sailing in your boat?”
This has become trickier to arrange now that I live in Wales instead of Scotland. However, when a new refrain was added, “Can we go and see Wildcat Island and the Secret Harbour?,” I suggested to their parents that they arrange a holiday in the Lakes. So they did, and that’s how we ended up planning a few days by Coniston Water to coincide with their October half-term break.
The weather forecast was mixed with some strong wind and rain but enough drier, quieter spells to make sailing with our youthful crew feasible. It was the Dinghy Cruising Association’s Windermere weekend but unfortunately Wild Cat Island is not in Windermere—unlike Ransome’s “Rio,” the town of Bowness-on-Windermere—so it was Coniston Water for us.
We decided to keep the boat at the Boating Centre by the Bluebird Café and launch from there. It was pretty wet on Friday but we got it more or less rigged and ready for an early start the next day. The forecast looked reasonable, sunny even, and gusts of no more than Force 4 (11-16 knots). The plan was to set off down the lake to Wild Cat Island (Peel Island) in the morning with my granddaughters on board, hoping we would be able to creep into Secret Harbour and go ashore to explore before meeting their parents for a picnic in the bay that may be Horseshoe Cove—or Low Peel Near on Ordnance Survey maps.
The weather was not quite so clement as expected on Saturday morning, 8th October, but we set off anyway, knowing that we had our new ePropulsion electric motor to help us if needed.
Confident and seasoned sailors after only an hour’s experience down the lake!
The girls were delighted to be tacking and soon got the hang of shouting ‘“Ready!” when Keith said, “Ready about?,” and backing the jib momentarily before pulling the sheet in smartly on the new tack.
As often happens, an increase of knowledge brought with it the temptation to judge: ‘Great tack!,” or, very occasionally, an ominous silence, that prompted Keith’s eyebrow to rise. The occasional gybe brought a sense of high drama, not really justified in the Bass Boat, which twirls as easily as they do on Strictly Come Dancing.
We made excellent progress down the lake—was Keith sneakily using the motor to help us along, I wondered? And soon Wild Cat Island was there off our port bow.
We decided to go past and drop sail before edging back into the harbour if it was clear. The girls got the paddles ready and we enjoyed the rainbows and the sight of “Kanchenjunga” appearing out of the clouds.
The mountain ‘Kanchenjunga’ (Coniston Old Man) is left of the rainbow; “Secret Harbour” is ahead
Yay! No one else was in Secret Harbour and we were able to edge in just as though we were in Swallow herself, carefully disentangling our mast truck from overhanging twigs as we entered. Then it was off round the island to find where the look-out tree was (below) and where the landing place and campsite might have been.
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