St Catharine's College Boat Club

When Jet suggested we row to Ely and back in May Week, I think we all envisaged a sunny afternoon's row to the Cathedral City, where we could have a nice pub lunch before sauntering back up the river to Cambridge.

How wrong we were.

Our first mistake was underestimating the distance. 52km is a long, long way.

Our second mistake was expecting it to be sunny. No-one bothered to look at a weather forecast, and so we weren't exactly well prepared for the downpour. Fortunately for Harriet though someone for some reason brought an umbrella, so at least she could cox in the relative dry. In the end the rain didn't last too long, and at least it was warm, if muggy.

Navigating Bottisham lock was nearly our next mistake, although just in time Jet managed to find a key and we were able to make our way through with the assistance of our heroic bank party, Chris Eddy. Incidentally, navigating a lock in an eight when the lock is considerably narrower than the bladespan is rather exciting.

What was so heroic about the bank party? Well, none of us knew what the towpath had in store beyond Bottisham, but thanks to some google earth investigation Chris was sure that it would be possible, if rather nettly. We lost Chris immediately after the lock, but assumed that he would catch up. Except for the occasional confused phone call where he would update us with the latest lake he'd had to wade or nettle thicket he'd fallen into, we had no contact with Chris until Ely.

I was the first to see the bedraggled figure arrive. The poor man was soaked to the skin, pushing his bike beside him. Evidently the bike chain's resolve was not as strong as the rider's, and had snapped several miles back, leaving Chris to walk the remaining distance to Ely. I have never seen nettle stings like those on Chris's legs. No-one quite knows what happened to Chris on the path from Bottisham to Ely. He tells us that just as he had lost his way and was losing hope just as rapidly a fisherman appeared in a clearing in the nettles, who guided him back to safety.

In Ely, we hadn't considered what to do with our boat. Based on absolutely no evidence we decided that CUBC wouldn't be using their boathouse that day and dumped the Honourable Alistair outside whilst we dashed into town to get fish and  chips. Of course CUBC were using their boathouse, but fortunately were in a good mood so let us off for parking on their doorstep.

For the row home, there was no way that Chris was going to confront the terrors of that tow path again, and Harriet had to be back in Cambridge (we had made considerably slower progress than we expected) so caught the train whilst Chris coxed us back. The row back was long and hard, but largely uneventful. Aided by Chris's entertaining coxing we made fairly good time on the way home.

We staggered back into the boathouse at around 8.30pm, exhausted. It had been a filthy day and I think we had all underestimated it, but it was really good fun and a nice conclusion to the year, particularly for those leaving us who might not know when they will next be getting into a boat!

A photo taken outside CUBC at Ely is attached.