22 Sep 2024

Twelve members of the Club met at our Clubhouse to load canoes before heading over to Rye Harbour Sailing Club. We were met at the sailing club by Sue and Andrew who were going to support us from the sailing club’s RIB the Dick Cooper. On arrival the tide was flowing strongly into the harbour and David was heard uttering one of his normally encouraging remarks about how many of us would be capsizing by the end of the day due to the tidal flow.

Over a pre-paddle lunch we sat and discussed a rough plan for the afternoon which involved paddling with tide into the centre of Rye before turning round and splitting into two ‘teams’ to pick litter from both banks of the harbour.

After final preparations we went afloat, Finn on a paddleboard and the rest of us in canoes, and had an easy paddle with the tide into the centre of Rye with the occasional piece of litter picked on the way. At the Strand we checked out the work being done to install a floating dock for the sailing boats that come upriver and took the opportunity to have a chat and a coffee break. Suitably refreshed and prepared, the work of the day now started in earnest as the tide turned and we headed back down the river.

It was an impressive sight as we split to cover both riverbanks, hopping out of canoes to cross the saltmarsh to collect all manner of rubbish from small bits of plastic, to cool boxes, to deck chairs and water tanks. Lisa seemed to spend more time mascot hunting than actual litter picking and found a soggy parrot, something that looked like a monkey and a water pistol with a rubber duck on it. After a couple of hours of activity we had collected about as much as we could in our canoes and so we decided to pose for photos before heading back to the sailing club.

We had a great afternoon doing something worthwhile. The weather was kind to us with none of the forecasted rain or thunder materialising, we managed to collect a fair amount of rubbish and David’s prediction of multiple capsizes was thankfully wrong as we all managed to stay dry.

Our thanks to Rye Harbour Sailing Club for hosting us and in particular Sue and Andrew who gave up their Sunday to support our endeavours.