Chapter 16 Shelter Among the Sands

`Thames, Dover, northwest 5/6, 7 later `. In spite of the dominating high, the 1355 hrs shipping forecast brought deep gloom aboard the little green cutter battling into the short, steep seas knocked up by the ebb tide in the outer Thames Estuary. It was a breath-takingly beautiful scene; clear blue sky tinting the writhing waters into a sparkling blend of greens and blues, topped by gleaming white crests. Worrying streaks of spent foam littered the faces of the waves.

  Three miles to the north-west, the low seawall of Essex fell away beyond the rapidly widening expense of the drying Maplin Sands, already edged by a line of yeasty surf. Steamers, waiting for their turn to go up into the Port of London, stood rock steady at anchor, making useful benchmarks with which to gauge the progress made good on each tack. Under a close-reefed mainsail and tiny staysail, the little boat could be nursed over the waves safely enough but progress was slow. It would improve beyond measure if the jib was unfurled but at the cost of showers of spray and some terrifying bumps when she sailed off the top of one wave to land in the trough before the next.

  It was nearly half ebb and the chances of beating the twelve miles to the Whittaker Beacon at the northeastern tip of the sands by low water, never very good unless the wind swung southeasterly, were now nil. The precious radio was switched off and stowed safety of the cabin. In a smooth patch she came round onto port tack once more and then I settled down to assess the options.

  I had long made a habit of taking a full weeks` holiday at Easter and this one had turned out to be a winner, with the sun rising out of the sea each morning and sinking below the seawall each evening. Four days in the Harwich area had been followed by a glorious nine hour run south to the Medway on Tuesday. There I spent a lazy day among the marshes near the river mouth and another upstream among the dilapidated wharves and the ship repair yards near the first bridge at old Rochester. By Friday it was time to head home to Heybridge but the wind stayed in the northeast and became more hostile. Not good; but, on the principle of sailors over the centuries, it was `worth a look`. And this is where it had got me!

The first possibility was to run back to Leigh on Sea and shelter but that would do little to solve the problem of getting home. The second was to press on steadily and fight the young flood until the sands covered sufficiently to enable me to cross to the Outer Crouch. Cold and tired, with no chance of a hot food or drink, there would be a dangerous temptation to cut the corner on a dead lee shore. This sent my thoughts back to an incident on a Good Friday in the mid sixties when two larger craft left the Medway in the same circumstances and after rounding the Whitaker, drifted south over the sands during the run towards the Crouch. A lesson well worth noting from this incident was that finding themselves in shallow water, they both anchored, one with chain and one with a nylon warp. Both snubbed viciously but the elasticity of the nylon avoided any danger of breaking. The chain, normally so superior in deep water, had no benefit from its` weight in shallow water and broke, leading to the loss the vessel, fortunately without loss of life. The crew got ashore in the rubber duck. I have used this route a number of times in light conditions but not today; no thank you!

The third option was to run back a mile or so and creep into a hole in the sands near the old measured mile beacon in the lee of now drying Blacktail Spit. That would be safe enough and when the tide returned I could beat across the sands to Havengore Creek. But it would be dark by then and I would have to wait for water enough for me to use at least half of the plate (two feet), preferably a little more. The wind and tide would be against me and there are stakes eighteen inches high on the sand set out by the M.o D. for ranging purposes. Drop on top of one of those and fini! The fourth option was an old trick perfected over the years but not previously used in such strong winds as this. I could press on past the Blacktail Spit until the S.E. Maplin buoy came in sight. There is a gut running northwest into the sands here. If I could find my way in, there would be shelter in the lee of the drying patches for me to brew up, have a meal and a rest. It would take longer but once there, I could sail to Havengore under headsail with the plate right up when the tide returned. Finding the beginning of the channel is the problem and the sounding pole is the only sufficiently accurate aid. It is not just a case of finding a gap in the surf, for the tide runs off the sands so rapidly that deeper water is as tortured as shallow. The prospect of peace and quiet among the sands was irresistible. After a furious session with the sounding pole, including a frightening patch only two feet deep, there was no bottom at six feet and suddenly the little boat was steady for the first time since she left the River Medway at 1100 hrs.

I settled back at the tiller as Shoal Waters, now with the sheets eased, raced through the smooth water followed by a long, lazy swell from the main. Visibility was superb; the chimney on the Isle of Grain power station, the tower blocks of modern Southend, the gasometer at Shoeburyness, the gun towers on the Shivering and Red Sands and most important of all, the buildings and structures of the defence establishment three miles across the sand on Foulness Island. A gleaming ridge of drying sand reached out beyond the Blacktail Beacon towards the buoy of the same name. Progress was slow, for the tide races off the sands but it was certain. At 1530 hrs the depth was down to three feet with a drying hump to windward. The bowsprit rounded up into the wind, the anchor and the sails went down and the kettle went on.

It is said that Southerners in the United States have a method of catching porcupines by using a bathtub. You drop the tub over the animal, trapping it. The next move is up to you but at least you have something to sit on while you think it out! I felt rather the same about my present situation. The watershed between Havengore Creek which ebbs into the Crouch and the River Thames is some half a mile to seaward of the coastline. Until the lifting road and rail bridge was built in the twenties, it was the only road to Foulness Island and known as the Broomway because it was marked by a line of brooms or withies. High water was at 2346 hrs at Sheerness. The mean rise of six hours fifteen minutes gave low water at 1730 and the pocket tidal atlas shows the tide hereabouts is twenty minutes earlier. There should be enough water over the Broomway at 2200hrs. The course was roughly due west but it would depend on slight channels revealed by the advancing flood tide, because the sands are not billiard table flat. As the passage could be made under headsail, I fitted the working staysail in place of the small jib.

Shallow water is smooth water on these sands but as the tide rises, the snatching stress on the anchor chain becomes a problem, as the weight of the chain cannot offer any shock absorber effect as it does in deep water. I rove some thick shock cord through links of the chain to make a bight so that the strain was taken gradually by the cord. When the tide returned, it would just be a case of moving on as soon as the water got deep enough to be uncomfortable. Down plate six inches, up anchor, unroll the headsail and run in with the tide, taking care to keep upwind and up tide of the entrance to the creek. When the plate whispers (no danger with the wind dead aft), whip it up, round up, furl the sail and down anchor. Back into the warmth of the cabin for a brew up and to study the course of the advancing tide through the glasses, the boat lying head to wind. At no time would the hull touch the sand.

In places the tide runs in as fast as man can walk. Several wildfowlers were trapped and drowned here in the early seventies. The best water over the Broomway is marked by a wooden post with a cross topmark and eight horizontal cross pieces at twenty inch intervals. It should be approached from the southeast and two plain posts mark this route. I knew that with luck, I should be able to find one of them in the dark. The Easter moon was old now and there would be no help there. It is not every yachtsman’s idea of sailing but to this happy forty year old partnership of boat and owner builder with 70,000 miles of ditch crawling behind them, it is the very cream of the sport.

By 1900 hrs the little cone of sand built on the dry bank as a tidemark had been overwhelmed and it was time for the first move. The bearing of the twin radar towers on Foulness increased from 346 degrees to 355. Now the 7 x 50 binoculars picked out the gaunt structure of the bridge (similar to the famous Pegasus Bridge of D Day fame) three and a half miles away. Next move, the towers came into transit, a sign that they were due north, and began to open again. The beacons leading into Havengore Creek could be picked out with the glasses as the sun set behind the sea wall at 2015 hrs, (today the new bridge is lit up like Piccadilly Circus). They would be lost again as darkness closed in, but it was comforting to get a bearing on them while the light lasted. The clear blue of the sky turned into a golden glow that seemed to go on for ever, while the wind, freed from the opposition of the sun, increased its` bite and the roar of the surf carried on it was a reminder that this was a deadly serious business with no room for mistakes.

Under way once more, a stake slipped by to port, its` slimy green top just visible between the waves. By keeping in shallow water, at least I couldn’t land on top of them! The problem now was to find those beacons again. Crouching low in the cockpit made them stand out in the night sky against the glare of Southend. Suddenly, one appeared a few hundred yards ahead and a sweep of the glasses showed the beacon on the Broomway to landward. It slipped by to port at 2200 hrs. With just a few inches under her keel Shoal Waters headed up into the wind a little and glided into deepening water from the River Crouch as the saltings closed round protectively on either hand. When the sounding pole drew a blank and the red lights of the chimney on the Isle of Grain power station moved west of the hut on the tip of the mainland from which they fly the red warning flag, the anchor went down for the last time that day.

The bridge doesn’t open at night but there would be another high tide next day. An anchor light was an absurdity but I put it up as the seal of good seamanship on a deeply satisfying adventure. The Gaz heater and the stove roaring under the kettle for the last hot drink, soon warmed up the tiny cabin. I unrolled my sleeping bag and positioned my pillow to complete an atmosphere of cosy comfort in contrast to the bitter cold outside. One lingering look, leaning over the boom with a cup of Horlicks in my hand, I marvelled at the peace and quiet of the creek. The soft dark shape of the saltings and seawalls contrasted with the bright black of the swirling tide and overhead the stars were so prolific that it was difficult to pick out the constellations. A motor vehicle clattered over the old iron bridge and sent a harsh metallic rattle echoing across the open marshes.

It would get lively here at high water and on the first of the ebb, but calm would return as soon as the Broomway uncovered. In fact I was hardly even aware of it. A routine look out just before dawn found the last of the ebb moving silently towards the bridge under a slim crescent moon. The sounding pole showed three feet over soft mud and I climbed contentedly back into the sleeping bag.