Coniston - 1 March 2012

Today, a rather dingy and damp day, I found myself looking for an adventure.

Sailing on Coniston has been on my 'things to do' list for a while. With Peel 'Wild Cat' island to explore and its North/South attitude which should make the wind more favourable than lakes like Derwent it has always looked promising, I'd just not got there with the dinghy...... until today.

The first challenge was where to launch without paying an arm and a leg in parking and launching fees. I'd heard that Brown Howe was cheap and you could launch a dinghy so I thought I'd check it out.

The signs at Brown Howe car park say 'no powered craft to be launched', judging by the carefully placed boulders they want to limit boats to those that can be carried. Luckily my trailer fitted between then - just, with a little scrapping of the mud guards, so most launching trolleys should be be OK. Also, luckily for me, they are trialing a £2.50 all day parking charge. So that was it - £2.50 to park and launch, a box full of butties and a flask full of coffee - off to a good start.

A tight access path

The path from the car park is about 100 yards and not to steep, getting to the water was a doddle, getting back to the car 5 hours later was a little more tricky, but I managed it single handed.

Looking North with Peel 'Wildcat' island in the distance

As I said earlier the day was damp and dingy, so not photogenic in the slightest, but the sailing was great. I manged to get pretty much to the head of the lake running all the way, but the winds were slight and very weak at the north end so it took a couple of hours. I then had a three hour beat back down the lake, the wind then picked up and made the run back great fun. I had intended on landing on Peel island but was running out of time and as the wind was blowing from the west right into the harbour it would have meant lowering the sail and rowing in so I decided I'd leave it until next time and take Ellie back to explore. According to the SatNav I clocked up 15 miles so it was time to go home.

The one thing that I really noticed was the wind was fairly constant not blustery as it usually is on Derwent. Anyway it was a great day.............I'll be back.

5 hours of fun.