On a windless, foggy October morning one can safely paddle out of sight of land on Dittisham pool to enjoy the eerie sense of being enclosed in white space.
But right in the middle is a line of turbulence where the flood tide rises over a submerged sandbank and meets another flow of water coming from the opposite side. The vigorous eddies collect all the river debris of leaves, branches, bottles and bags.
As the sun burns up the mist, other paddlers emerge against the lovely landscape of the Greenway promontory.
The quiet sea, the low spring tide and the low October sun give a rare opportunity to explore a ruin of the wartime defence of Dartmouth. This is the torpedo station which guarded the harbour entrance.
The sunlight reflected into the gloomy interior reveals the hasty wartime construction laid over the finely detailed granite sea wall built around the tower folly.
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