On a mid-January evening, five intrepid North Avon kayakers slipped out into the calm star-lit waters of the Bristol Channel for a night navigation from Portishead to Shirehampton and back. It was a chilly evening, but all were well-dressed for the trip and kept warm paddling across the glass-like surface of the water. Their passage confirmed with Bristol VTS, they moved out past Battery Point and Portishead Marina and into the mouth of the River Avon. Then sneaking past Avonmouth and under the M5 motorway bridge, to where the lights of Pill Harbour and Shirehampton twinkle across the Avon’s final stretch.