Occasionally, a high spring tide at the right time allows me to paddle down to Dartmouth from the tidal limit at Bow Bridge. Just down Bow Creek, the calm freshness of an early summer morning lit up the ancient industrial and port village Tuckenhay. Now it has holiday cottages and apartments in the cider press and the paper mill, but these enduring place names and the disused quarries and lime kilns hint at the life it must once have had. Now Bow creek has silted up so much that there is little boat traffic and the Little Egret ornament the mud flats with their pure white feathers, disturbed only by occasional canoeists and motor boat people coming up on the tide to the two pubs. Their drinking time is limited, or much extended, by the short period when boats can float.
At Dartmouth I joined the canoe club boats for a tour on calm water to the Mew Stone, a natural harbour at low tide and home to a seal colony. Returning, we passed the dark pine grove on the east side at the entrance to the estuary.
tim P