CROSS CHANNEL CANOEING

REU RAF Henlow

By Peter Williams

Back in September 1963 a group of us from the REU at RAF Henlow set off to Dover to canoe across to Calais supported by MTB 1390. The weather was against us so we boarded 1390 and went over to Calais, I believe it was the first time since the war that the RAF had entered Calais. It was well reported in Nord Littoral. We spent the night on the dunes and canoed back the following day into Dover being well supported and protected by the skipper and crew of 1390 in such a busy shipping area.
Enclosed are a couple of photos of the event with me on board 1390 in Calais harbour.

Photo: Illustrative image for the 'CROSS CHANNEL CANOEING' page
Photo: Illustrative image for the 'CROSS CHANNEL CANOEING' page
This page was added by Peter Williams on 28/03/2014.
Comments about this page

This is not Calais. The tug in the background is one of the Dover twins, Diligent or Dominant, and those 'submarine pens' (that actually housed MTB's) were part of the Dover landscape for many years before that section of the harbour was redeveloped in the 1990's.

http://tempuri.org/tempuri.html

Same tug, same place!

So this must be a 'before' or 'after' photo.

By Andy Gilbert
On 29/03/2014

The photo at the bottom is certainly Dover after our trip across from Calais but, it was 50 years ago, I thought the top photo was whilst we were moored up in Calais.

 

By Peter Williams
On 10/11/2014
Add a comment about this page

If you're already a registered user of this site, please login using the form on the left-hand side of this page.