A “Raid”, for  the uninitiated, is a coastal adventure under sail and oar using small open boats. It’s a lovely way to mess about in boats -   distilling boating to its essence! You can roar around in flashy, fast boats and swan about in gentlemen’s yachts replete with polished brass and varnish – all very nice but, as the River Rat said to Mole,  “there’s nothing . . . absolutely nothing . . . half so much worth doing as simply messing around in boats.”

So this is it – the essence of it – and we’re off today to mess around in boats! We have a loose plan and we have some boats and some willing Raiders and it’s away to circumnavigate Boston Island! Great weather for it too – calm to light SE, partly cloudy and a cool 16 degrees.

Our fleet is motley – an Open Water Whitehall, a Virus Yole, an old Planked Surf boat, a Ness Yole and a new Clinker Yawl. Roughly twenty Raiders and a wee white dog!

And a lovely day it was – calm across to Fanny Point where for a brief period a light SE breeze filled in only to disappear again by the time we reached Picnic Beach – never to return in any seriousness and so dashing any notions of sailing. Several attempts were made in the hope that the effort to raise sail would be met with some reward but it was very much an oars-mans day.

We gathered for a first brief stop at Picnic Beach and then continued on for a lunch stop at Squeaky Beach. I’ve mentioned both of these beaches before in a “Boston Island loop” post – they are the jewels on the Eastern coast of the island, conveniently placed one at either end so as to offer welcome respite for the weary Raider!

The lunch stop at Squeaky Beach followed three hours of rowing - a bit less, allowing for a comfort stop at Picnic and a few crew circulations! Sitting on the sand, devouring lunch while admiring the day, the bay and the boats was greeted with general approval and following a short sortie into the hinterland to rediscover a pioneer’s well garden (just beyond the dunes at the back of the beach), we took up oars for the homeward leg.

It’s another decent pull home from Squeaky and in such calm conditions we hugged the coast, passing inside of both Kangaroo and House reefs and then leaving the island just beyond Peter Davis’ landing, crossed the bay to finally run up into the Marina, thus completing a very pleasant day and certainly enough exertions to subdue even the younger Raiders.

I doubt any participants are up for carousing tonight!