River Clyde from Boden Boo beach at The Erskine Bridge to the River Leven in Dumbarton. Written by Agnes.
Thank you to trip leaders Pat and Paul for taking time out to do this Third Sunday paddle (18th October) as a result of the 2nd Saturday (10 October) paddle being cancelled due to high winds.
When I left the house in Dumbarton at 8am I could hardly see in front of me in fog as I drove up the A82 to meet Pat at Miller Street to get kit from the container. By the time we got to Boden Boo beach and met the other 8 paddlers Paul, Amanda, June, Noelle, Hannah, Mags, Leigh and Zoe the fog had started to clear.
We got on the water about 10am and were doing some warm-up and paddling exercises when along came the Waverley Paddle Steamer.
Everyone was so excited waving and taking photos until the wake from the Waverley caught Leigh unawares and capsized his boat. Fortunately we were still in fairly shallow water and with only his pride being hurt he was back in his boat in no time and we were on our way.
By now the haar had lifted, there was a glimmer of sunshine and the water was very calm as we headed towards The Lang Dyke. We weren’t long into our peaceful paddle on still water when we saw a huge tanker off in the distance heading our way. As it got nearer us it was suggested that we turn to face it and raft up to avoid any further mishaps. This turned out to be a good plan as the wake from this was quite substantial.
Once the water was fairly settled we continued on our way. When we reached The Lang Dyke we stopped for a Jelly Baby break whilst Pat gave us the history of The Lang Dyke (in short – it was built in the 18th century to deepen a channel allowing boats to come up the Clyde to Glasgow – it is no longer in use due to more modern technology).
We continued paddling along the dyke for a bit admiring the scenery until Paul found us a spot where it was safe to land for lunch (at low tide one side of the dyke is a deep channel and the other side is mud flats) Getting out of the boat wasn’t easy as you sank into the soft mud below the water.
We sat on some sea weed covered rocks and had lunch in the sunshine whilst keeping an eye on the boats as the tide was coming in quite fast. Not many people can say they have had lunch on a mud flat in the middle of the River Clyde!
After lunch we headed further down the dyke before crossing over to have a look at Dumbarton Castle from the water. From here we carried on round Dumbarton Rock into the River Leven where we watched a climber on the rock whilst Zoe and Paul gave us some information with regards the geology of the rock itself and how difficult it is to scale it.
We paddled further up the Leven to see Dumbarton Town Centre from the water before our return journey. Just before leaving the River Leven we saw 3 tug boats ahead of us on the Clyde. Fortunately they were far enough away that we didn’t need to deal with any wake from them.
On the paddle back we tried to locate the remains of the Dumbuck Crannog but the tide was too far in. We continued up to and had a look around the Bowling Basin. Hannah managed a towing exercise here too before we made our way back to Boden Boo.
On route we admired the reflection of the Erskine Bridge in the calm water before arriving at the beach around 3.30pm
All in all an eventful but beautiful paddle in the winter sunshine, beautiful scenery and mostly calm waters with great people.