Party: SUP Club – Hoe Mill to Beeleigh

Party: SUP Club – Hoe Mill to Beeleigh

Unsuitable tides are sending us back to the river this week, and there's just enough easterly breeze to justify heading into it first. So we're launching from Hoe Mill Lock tonight (http://www.supsect.com/hoe-mill-lock/ CM9 6RA). Meeting from 6.30pm, we'll launch the hire kit / shortest boards / newest paddlers first at 6.55pm, then all-comers about 7pm and speedy types last at 7.05pm. We're aiming to paddle east downstream and into the breeze for two locks to the confluence of the tidal Chelmer and Blackwater at Beeleigh Lock and back, a 7km loop. Unfortunately, the blanket weed is up in the lock cuts, it is passable but not particularly pleasant for a couple of hundred metres... Also, if you're not comfortable with swans, be warned that we're very likely to encounter one pair with cygnets, and hence an understandably defensive new father! (But nothing like as feisty as the infamous fella down at Rushes; just don't stare, we'll give his family maximum space, and paddle confidently past, hugging the opposite bank...) And afterwards, we'll probably need to dash to the Six Bells for soon after 9pm if we want feeding? (Alternatively, the Victoria up the road is good for a beer or two...)