It was a hard one, should we make the trip or give it a miss? the tides were all wrong and it would mean launching no later than 8am in order to get out of the creek in Helford..
Lots of humming and aaghin later on the saturday night we decided lets just turn up and see what happens..
5am Start only to find our favourite Cornish Mizzle getting heavier on the way to Helford and becoming actual rain, eventually it stopped just outside Helston and we though everything was going to be fine..
Dawn was just breaking as we pulled through Newtown into Helford and a mist hung over the river and it started to rain again..
we stood by the van under Umbrella’s having a cup of fresh brewed tea waiting and watching the tide slowly dissapearing from the creek.. eventually it stopped.. light broke through the heavy cloud out at sea and we made the decision.. Lets launch while we can and see how it goes.. we can always come back in at the sailing club if the rain gets heavy.. so we loaded up Serendipity (Our inflatable) aptly named as Serene and a little bit Dippy, Leanne being the Serene one and even I admit to being dippy most of the time.. after all here I was 7am on a sunday morning cloudy and damp planning on dragging a few thousand quids worth of camera equipment up the muddy river in search of anything and anyone as dippy as me to be out there.
We certainly missed Aidan on this trip,  he was visiting his  mother in Hospital (Hoping she’s doing a lot better my friend) and he usually helped (more than I realised) to launch us with all the equipment..

I made the decision to push out from the sailing club and dragged the boat off down the road while Leanne visited the ladies room .. Now those who know the slip at the HRSC will know its not best trying to let the boat take you down the slip on your own at a rate of knots wearing a pair of well worn crocs that decide to slide on anything remotely slippy.. but there I was trying to keep my Backside from touching base and hanging onto the dinghy for dear life as we both slid down the last part of the slip on to the rocks.. well pebbles .. below  HOWEVER apart from a slightly oulled muscle in my right chest somewhere we made it intact and in enough time to regain composure and look Cool by the time leanne arrived a few minutes later.
The last few rumpy pumpy rolls over the cobbles and the boat was in the water and we burbled out towards the main river channel..
Looking back to sea was an amazing sight – The Dawn light was dissappearing ina blue haze  out at sea and the brighter light coming in showed a little promise that we may not be completely mad for being out here..

It was so peaceful as we burbled slowly up the river, curlew flying rapidly downstream with the tide and Cormorants already out hunting breakfast.. it was only as we reached the entrance to Frenchman’s creek that we realised there wasn’t going to be enough water to get us to Bishops quay, or indeed into any of the creeks today until much later, the tide does that .. a 6am High tide leaves you high and dry most of the day…so we made the decision to see how far we could get up river and slowly drift back down with the tide to spend a little time around the beaches at the mouth of the Helford.. or whatever the weather decided to change in those plans…
There were a tremendous amount of  Cormorants around this morning so hopefully the fishing may have improved after the red tide of a few weeks back.. here’s a couple resting on one of the fallen trees just past Frenchman’s.

Many fallen leaves floated on top of the river today showing massive signs that autumn was well and truly with us… The oak forests that line the Helford river were turning Golden through reds and browns and made the most amazing mosaic of colours.. another Cormorant flew past us giving us the amazing green eye as if to say who you taking pics of then?

We decided to settle for an hour at the edge of Polpenwith Creek (I hope I got that right) just before bishops quay as it was getting difficult to get any further, we had a quick look first at the Dory moored at the end of the creek as its something I’ve thought would be a lot easier and better bet for us to use for the river trips if we could find somewhere to moor it on the river, and of course if I manage to sell any photographs along the way to finance that idea lol…  It would certainly give us a lot more room than we currently have in the inflatable.. ah well!!  maybe in some other dimension somewhere.
We camped by the bench on the path that leads down to tremayne Quay to have a bit of lunch and for me to take a few more stable images of the river and surrounds.. such as the Autumn colours in the forest opposite.. I heard tell this was one of the 14 oldest forests in Europe.. its certainly quite magickal walking through it..the amazing twisting boughs of the oaks.

Meanwhile a watchful Buzzard soared above us checking out the larder below probably wondering what was for his lunch today.. we thought we saw the Osprey again but he was too far over Constantine (Polwheveral)  creek to be able to tell for sure..

Things were definately working out for us as we sat having lunch realising that we’d definately made the right decision to come out today.. all around were storm clouds and yet we sat here in a pocket of sunshine drinking in the beauty that most only dream about…
I wandered down and checked the river and realised if we were going to move at all for the next few hours then we’d best move now or we were going to be fast running out of water as we approached low tide.
Curlew watched as we dragged the boat off the mud back to the river before flying off upstream to the mud banks freshly exposed with the low tide.

We trundled off down the river again once again observing the massive amount of Cormorants fishing in the wide part of the river between constantine and frenchmans creek

and the Old guys watching on…

We sailed on down through helford to find a nice quiet beach to sit out the Low tide and enjoy a little afternoon sun..
Meanwhile life on the river was awakening more down here, with sunday morning boat repairs taking advantage of the low tide and Cockle collecting from the beaches..

We settled ourselves down on the beach by the mouth of the river overlooking Mawnan and watched the life travel up and down the river… Boats were starting to move with the tide in and out and we were happy to be sitting in this pocket of Glorious sunshine while all around the storm clouds and rain was visible…
I turned a little green with envy as a super Dory passed us and remember distinctly calling to Leanne.. probably a little too loudly.. I WANT ONE OF THEM!!!   if anyone has one for sale or any Dory (preferably Dell Quay) for not too many Mola id be interested to hear

I spent the next hour or so humming dock of the bay by Otis redding and watching little boats medium boats and great big boats moving about on the river while reflecting on my lil’ old serendipity dragged on the beach..

And so it was that the afternoon passed us by as we sat enjoying the sunsine before setting sail back up with the tide to try to get into Frenchmans and hopefully find some more wildlife..
As we wandered upstream we realised all the sailing Dinghies were heading out of the club and heading in our general direction so we moved off to one side to allow them passage.. and of course shot a few as they passed

Well we finally wandered down into Frenchmans creek and sadly the light was changing and the grey that had surrounded the helford all day threatening finally descended making any real wildlife photography virtually impossible in the lowlight.. however we did discover these wonderful fungii growing on one of the tree’s as we walked together through the woods..

Back out into the main river we found another watchful Buzzard sitting atop one of the trees..catching the last glinting rays of the setting sun..

how rapidly the days go on these trips, but here we were fast approcahing the 12th hour since we set off for todays trip and Leanne was looking decidedly weary.. but once again no mishaps or accidents so the day had been another eventful success.. hopefully you’ll enjoy some of the images.

As always don’t forget these are just a selection of the days images and many more reside in our ongoing Galleries… HERE 

Out into the main river flow we found the light had moved up river and as the sun dropped behind us it left us once again with some amazing scenery to take home with us…

And finally I moved midstream to line up this wonderful boat Wanda in the setting sun

And on that Note good people of the Helford river I’ll leave you until the next time I’m able to glide upon these wonderful waters in search of inspiration and fulfillment…
Thanks for taking the time to look…

Mel x