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Greatham Bridge to Houghton Bridge (River Arun)

Today was my first outing on our local river, the Arun, and was an opportunity to get three generations of the family out in the boat! The weather was great for the time of year and we had a fun trip, although my route plan ultimately proved over ambitious.

We aimed to catch the ebbing tide from Greatham Bridge and worked on a guesstimate that high water would be two hours later than at Littlehampton (the nearest reference port which is at the mouth of the river). The logic for this was that I have seen HW Houghton Bridge quoted as being HW Littlehampton +1:30 and, given the short distance up river to Greatham Bridge from Houghton Bridge, and the fact that it was the day before springs (when tides reach inland faster), I thought two hours seemed about right. Actually, the difference was probably nearer to three hours so we had to work quite hard against the last of the incoming tide for the first hour or so of the trip.

We had originally planned to go as far as Offham but our slow progress against the tide meant that it was soon clear we were not going to get that far. Fortunately, we were able to call in a pick up at Houghton Bridge and got out there after an hour and a half and about 7km.