Skiddaw’s scalloped massif rises above the old pencil town of Keswick, with the silvery-blue teardrop of Derwentwater poised below and stretching three miles towards crag-girt Great End in the far distance. At Portinscale, at the northern end of the lake, I watch as Nick Cowan, the Lakeland Rowing Club captain, clambers back on to the jetty and then – somewhat clumsily – I try to help him lift his thoroughbred 27ft scull ashore.
Sculls are the swiftest human-powered craft, Nick, a retired Cockermouth GP, tells me over coffee in the marina. But they have one risk. “Scullers balance on hip-width sliding seats. Their skinny shells can capsize. Fall in icy lake water and you could succumb to ‘cold shock response’. This is why, summer apart, we wear life-vests and tend to hug the shore.” Such is their exhilaration.
But when – as the Eton Boating Song goes – blade [is] on the feather (ie parallel with the water) and the boat is gliding along, sculling is ideal for bird-watching. Scullers travel backwards, only occasionally glancing over their shoulders to see where they are going. So as they face the scene they are leaving, they catch sight of birds landing.
“On Derwentwater,” Nick says, “ I often see pink-footed geese from Siberia afloat and reaching out to feed from the banks. Birds also settle on farmland – where four geese can eat as much grass daily as one sheep.” Not popular with farmers then? He shakes his head. “Then there is Bassenthwaite Lake linked to Derwentwater by river. Migrant barnacle and Brent geese see it as an enormous motorway service station after flying in from as far away as Siberia and Iceland to land on open water for a good bite to eat.”
The best thing is that when he’s sculling birds don’t see him as a threat. “Herons are anxious birds and easily spooked,” he says. “Yet on Bassenthwaite I can glide to within 15ft of a heron that stands in reeds at the northern end. He says: ‘I know you. No problem.’ And I just paddle on.”
