I had read an account of a summer sailing canoe trip following the course of the river Erne undertaken in 1881 by T.H Holding in his canoe Osprey accompanied by two others and written up in The Field magazine of the following year.
The Erne rises in central Ireland and heads North and then West to reach the sea at Ballyshannon. On its way it passes through four distinct areas of Lough. The first two, Lough Gowna and Lough Oughter, seem to contain more land than water but the latter two, Upper and Lower Lough Erne, have lots of islands which look inviting for camping and become gradually more open until the final East-West stretch of Lower Lough Erne ( also called “The Broad Lough”) which provides at least 15miles of exposed water.
The river and it’s loughs are publicised as very suitable for paddling by the Northern Irish tourist board. If you visit a site called CanoeNI.com you can find details of suggested put-in and take-out points together with possible rough campsites.
The 1881 expedition started from Drumbarona station ( now no longer in existence) near Lough Gowna but a study of the map showed that the section from there to Lough Oughter seemed too narrow a river to consider any significant sailing so we decided to start from a secluded slip on the Western side of Lough Oughter.
Day 1 27/07/2014
We travelled there from the UK in a VW camper with the canoes on the roof and arrived at Lough Oughter at about lunch time on the Sunday.
Preparations and initial packing of canoes always takes a long time and we also had to take a break and shelter in the van from a very heavy rain shower before finally getting away, heavily laden, at about 4pm with a fresh Westerly breeze and an uncertain sky.
Where to go was not at all obvious as the open areas of water are all surrounded by trees and the passages from one area to another are quite narrow so it’s not easy to see the way out, but we were navigating with the help of a mapping app called Viewranger running on my mobile phone which gave constant real-time update of our location and heading.
We stopped to visit Clough Oughter Castle, no more than a ruined tower on its own small island.
It was a bit hairy getting away from there. We started out in the wrong direction heading towards an area of water that was in fact a cul-de-sac then running downwind under too much sail until we rounded a left hand bend into more sheltered water where there was rather a lot of weed which tended to catch and then jam the rudder so it would not lift to allow clearing it. We worked up to the road bridge
Here we stopped and talked to the owner of a nearby Outdoor Pursuits Centre. He gave us permission to camp on a field on the right bank a bit beyond the bridge.
Light drizzle but a nice fire and 6 miles under our belts.
Day 2 28/07/2014
Some of the party had a pleasant early swim near the bridge and found the water surprisingly warm. We were away by 10.30 am in light drizzle with a NNW force 3. We sailed out of the Lough through a narrow passage side by side which was fortunately almost dead downwind as it was barely wide enough for the two canoes to fit along it.
The river opened out and we turned gradually round to the North. Sailing still remained possible in this initial wider stretch of the river
but eventually we had to give in and paddle as the river became narrower and the course too head to wind. The amount of weed also made it necessary to raise both the rudder and centreboard
A long six mile paddle brought us near to the town of Belturbet where there is a small fall down a rock weir below a road bridge which prevents larger vessels from navigating any further up the river. We had deliberately had a look at this fall on our way to Lough Oughter in the van, just to check that it would be passable in the canoes. In the event the odd exposed rock upstream of the weir caused more alarm than the fall itself and we successfully passed under the bridge to stop at the pontoon on the West bank at 14.30. A short wander into town and the consumption of a pint or two of Guinness fortified us for another long session of paddling in the afternoon.
We began this at 4.30pm and arrived exhausted at the slip of the Crom estate, where we had pre-booked camping space near the river, at 6pm.
Later we walked round the estate which is just over the border in Northern Ireland and administered by the National Trust. It has some fine stone buildings including a boathouse and a picturesque ruined castle together with the obligatory tower on a small island offshore.
Arriving very late, the 1881 party had spent a night in this tower before being made more welcome and properly entertained by the owners of the estate on the following day. From their comments Crom was evidently the centre of a lively local yachting community in the late 1800s.
Day 3 29/07/2014
We got away from the slip at Crom rather late and under the scrutiny of a lot of visitors.
I also had some problems with the rudder blade sticking in the up position as a result of all the weed that had got jammed in it the day before. However the morning was much brighter than the previous day and there was a nice wind if only it had not been from NNW again which meant the whole day would be spent tacking to windward.
It was again surprisingly hard to find the way through all the islands which don’t seem to look at all like they do on the map when you are in amongst them.
Progress was slow so we stopped for a break on Dernish Island to sit out a particularly gusty squall.
Back on the interminable tacking again we finally made it to Lady Craigavon bridge which fortunately had 4.4m clear headroom so we could tack straight against the strong and fluky wind through without lowering the sails although this nearly caused a capsize.
We were all desperate for a break and some lunch by then so stopped on the East bank among a lot of brambles just beyond the bridge. After lunch we plugged on enjoying some reaches that we could lay until the sun came out so we stopped again at 4.30pm near an unoccupied summerhouse on Inishleague and had a brew of tea then all fell asleep!
Some longer tacks took us down to Knockninny where it was again very gusty and we were not inclined to stop or climb the hill but decided to push on and look for a suitable spot to camp further North. We found a nice peninsular on the West shore of the Lough with flat grass and camped about 6.15pm.
The spot was almost ideal with the possible exception that the water was too shallow near the shore to allow for any swimming but the evening sun shone and I used the time to fix the rudder uphaul cleat and the foresail tack reefing snaphook.
Day 4 30/07/2014
The wind finally went round to the West and blew a nice force 3 giving us a fine sail under the bridge and up the river leading out of the North West corner of the upper Lough. Tacking was necessary on some of the windward reaches but the river here is quite wide.
We continued up to Ballenaleck where we stopped at about 2pm and walked up to the centre of the village to do a bit of shopping. Unfortunately the Lace museum was closed and the service in the adjacent tearooms was rather slow, but the tea was welcome.
Periods of very light drizzle followed but we had some more relaxing reaches before needing to do a bit of tacking and finally some paddling when the wind fell light as we reached Enniskillen at 5pm.
The town did not look appealing somehow, nor did we fancy to stop and camp on the island in the river opposite the castle which is one of the officially designated rough camping sites suggested by CanoeNI for those following the Erne Canoe Trail, so we paddled on down through the open lock below the town, leading to Lower Lough Erne.
The sun came out and we had a fine sail on the Lough, past Devenish island and tried Trasna island as a possible campsite but found it too vegetated. We tacked over to the West shore and stopped on a flat peninsular just before Circle Hill.
Day 5 31/07/2014
The day dawned fine and at last the wind had gone round more towards the South. This was our last full day of sailing and tomorrow we needed to be in a position for someone to catch a bus back to the starting point and collect the van so that we could motor across Ireland to Rosslare and catch the ferry home. As we were running slightly behind my plan I was doubtful whether it would be possible to reach Belleek in time, so we decided to head North along the lough and so how things went but turn back in time to reach Enniskillen by the evening, perhaps stopping at Devenish island to visit the tower as we would definitely be able to catch a bus from there.
We got away promptly by 9.45am and broad reached up the lough at 3 to 4 knots with fine sunny periods between the patches of cloud and totally flat water.
We had a short break to stretch our legs at Inchmacsaint and then continued on towards the corner with “The Broad Lough” arriving there about 12.00
The wind fell lighter beyond Heron island and just beyond Duff point it disappeared all together, just as we would have been able to lay a course for Belleek and the Western end of the lough.
When the wind returned it came in strongly from the NW. We lay across the lough to the North shore through a squall of rain hoping to find some shelter. The first available land was an island called “Lusty More Island”!
After a wet lunch the wind had shifted further round to the West and strengthened so that one reef was required in the foresails. We had a hard time beating along the North shore and considered stopping again in the shelter behind Long Rock . Fortunately conditions moderated so that we were able to shake the reef out again and continue tacking.
Somewhere near Rossharbour Point William and Nick, who were following, tacked in to the North shore and waved for help. It appeared that the pivot bolt had dropped out of their rudder blade leaving them with no steering at all. Fortunately we had a suitable spare nut and bolt.
The long afternoon of tacking continued. Keeping near to the North shore or the shelter of islands was good in that the water was smoother but the downside was that the wind was much gustier and variable in direction than in more open water, necessitating constant vigilance to avoid a capsize.
Nick decided to make a long tack all the way over to the Southern shore.
The afternoon brightened up and we plugged on along the North side looking for somewhere to stop but the islands we were passing had no the dry land or else it was set well back behind a whole lot of trees and reeds growing out of the water.
Barbara announced that she was so tired that we had to stop for a rest even if it meant just tying up to some reeds.
Nick and William were nowhere to be seen and I was becoming a bit anxious about them.
However, in the end they caught up having rather lost out and done a lot more tacking as a result of the adverse deflection of the wind direction caused by the mountains on the South shore.
We tacked on fairly desperate to find a suitable camping place that was not a bird sanctuary.
Finally reaching a possible spot, a steep grass field with a flatish section near the water, we noted obvious signs that it was regularly used by cattle.
There was another possible spot next to a small jetty nearby.
Unfortunately, having camped, it became apparent that this was also a route favoured by cattle and this required William to hurriedly rig a thin rope fence to divert the cows round the tents as they came down for their evening drink.
All in all an epic day’s sail, all to windward in the afternoon yet logging 22.5 miles.
Day 6 01/08/2014
Our last day and we needed to get up really early to ensure that we left by 7.30am to paddle the 4 1/2 miles to Belleck in time to catch the bus back and get the van.
A very still morning with no wind to oppose us at last.
We had reached the end of a very enjoyable week’s sailing canoeing in surprisingly varied and beautiful countryside. the van was successfully retrieved and the canoes installed on the roof for the ferry trip back to Bristol.
