Chapter 18 Easter Cruise 1988

Let me be the first to admit that anyone fool enough to sail at Easter deserves to freeze to death and probably will sooner or later. Nevertheless, I find the lure of dropping down the river under a brilliant moon irresistible and Shoal Waters has never spent any of her forty Easters on her mooring. For over twenty years now I have made it a full week’s cruise. Two sleeping bags, each with a regularly refilled hotwater bottle so that they never cool, plus a Gaz radiant heater helps a lot. Thus the fading daylight of Wednesday 30th of March found me carrying my gear out to Shoal Waters over the mud and settling down for a nap before high water at 0100 hrs when the light northerly wind carried me down the drying Rays’n Channel where I anchored for the rest of the night at 0400 hrs.

The first objective was to have a look at the progress of the new bridge at Havengore, which I reached at noon. A lot had been done over the winter but there was left much to do and it did not look as though it would be open again in 1988. On route I noticed masses of driftwood on the southern shore of Wallasea Island and after rounding Rushley Island, beached there to spend the afternoon enjoying a grand bonfire. The wind persisted light northerly on Good Friday so Battlesbridge was the obvious place to visit on the afternoon high water, returning to Burnham for the night after a call into once lonely Eyot Creek to see the advancing buildings of the new town of South Woodham Ferrers.

Easter Saturday’s plans were dominated by an invitation to speak at the Crouch Yacht Club’s fitting out supper (why do so many clubs, including my own, persist on having this event during the middle of the sailing season?) but I managed to fit in two circumnavigations of Bridgemarsh Island over the high water before beaching near the recreation ground’s wooden slipway for the night. Joy joined me at Burnham at that evening with all the slide gear for the talk and later returned home.

My son brought her down again at 0800 hrs on Sunday and we took the last of the ebb to Key Reach and used the flood to Havengore where we lowered down and crept out over the Broomway with the first of the flood tide. The light northeasterly wind was dead astern on route to the Medway and for comfort and to get across the shipping lanes as quickly as possible, I filled the headsails from port which brought us to the Sheppey shore a couple of miles east of the river entrance. I gybed for a broad reach along the shore, watched by walkers on the beach enjoying the warm sunshine, to round the fort at Sheerness at 1600hrs for a steady trip over the spring ebb to a sheltered mooring in the Shalfleet. Monday brought gale force winds from the northeast. We looked out twice but thought better of it each time and beached near the old jetty for the rest of the day, contenting ourselves with lazy rambles over the extensive marshes.

Tuesday was not much better but with food running low and knowing from sad experience that it was early closing day in Lower Halstow, we sailed to the shelter of Upnor where we got fresh water but no groceries or most important, Gaz. They suggested the new Sun Pier at Chatham for shopping but I didn’t fancy the beat back with the ebb so we laid on the mud adjacent to Hoo Marina for the night. I shopped early and well in Hoo village on Wednesday morning and we breakfasted on steak and crisp, new bread. While waiting for the tide, I had another bonfire on the beach burning both wood and litter, for almost anything dumped into the water off Gillingham or Chatham ends up here thanks to the prevailing wind. When the tide returned we visited Sun Pier, finding it a most impressive structure, renewed our cylinder of Gaz, and returned to the Shalfleet via the backdoor. The northeast wind persisted on Thursday and we worked our way round the Isle of Sheppey to Faversham, beaching just above the Hollow Shore for the night. A riding light is a debatable problem when drying for part of the night but we put one up for it would still be dark when we floated and large craft still use this creek at times.

The forecast for Friday was northeast four to five. Having already won our easting by sailing through the Swale, we set sail confidently at high water to steer north which, with the help of the tide setting northeast, would carry us to the Whitaker Beacon by low water. In fact the wind was very light from due north and we ended up drifting in over the Maplin sands to Havengore at high water and Barling Creek for the night. Saturday’s forecast was not encouraging; northeast 5/6. Bearing in mind the accuracy of the forecast for previous day, we decided to have a look at it in spite of the cold rain and left at 0530 hrs. There is no need to go to the mouth of the River Crouch to judge the conditions when the wind is from the northeast for the same conditions will be found in the bend of the Roach above Key Reach. It was horrible! A couple of motor boats from Wakering bound out for a days rod and line fishing took one look and turned back but I pressed on to the Crouch and ran up stream to beach in comparatively smooth water near Clark and Carters` yard.

The contrast in the conditions when the afternoon flood tide reached her from those in which I beached her eight hours earlier could hardly have been greater. Then the whole River Crouch, except for a thin ribbon of sanity under the lee of the sea wall along the northern shore, was a writhing turmoil of tortured water as the ebb tide fought it out with a biting cold force six from the northeast, laced with a steady cold rain that the radio reported was falling as snow in London. With her ten or twelve inch draft, Shoal Waters sits up like a duck and after struggling for some ten minutes as the tide left her, she settled quietly on the mud while we erected the cockpit tent so that I could shed my wet gear and crawl into the cosy warmth of the cabin where Joy already had the kettle on the go. The flood returned as smooth as silk for the rain had cleared and the wind dropped to a zephyr. After a lazy afternoon watching racing yachts wooing the light airs, a hint of sun encouraged us to get underway and make slow progress seaward over the last of the flood as the breeze grew again. At 1700 hrs, just before high water, we anchored again to prepare ourselves for a night passage.

By the time we had made and drunk a cup of tea, the last of the racing craft had disappeared towards Burnham. The last cruising yacht followed them and the river suddenly became a very lonely place but the sky was clearing from the east. After rising rapidly, the wind seemed to settle down to E.N.E. force three to four. I resisted the temptation to take down a reef and found that she carried full sail in grand style pointing N.N.E. on starboard tack as we beat out with the first of the ebb. A few boards across the whole river soon brought the Crouch Red Can buoy at the mouth in sight as three large motor cruisers belted into the river in fine style. Visibility was extraordinary. Even features on the Clacton shore twelve miles away loomed above the hard line of the horizon. The proper route is to carry on another two miles and turn north at a spherical yellow buoy but as it was only an hour after high water Shoal Waters with her plate half down was able to cut the corner and allow the set of the tide off the extensive flats to make her easting into deeper water. It is always a pleasure to make this passage while the sun sets over the Dengie Hundred, that thinly populated ten mile peninsular between the rivers Blackwater and Crouch where even the farms cower a mile or more inshore from the fragile strip of sea wall that divides the windswept marshland from the mud and saltings outside. Back on land, these rivers are little more than streams and many have wondered why they have such broad valleys and estuaries. Excavations in distant inland gravel pits now suggest that each was once the mouth of the Thames. During the ice age the advancing glaciers cut off the river well inland and drove it to find its` way out to the sea further south. During the second world war an airfield was built at Bradwell and a bombing range established on the mud flats with a miniature railway along which the targets could be towed. Four hulls were stationed out on the mud and today the beacons marking them are the only navigation marks in this area. By the time that the first two came in line, halfway up the Ray, the sun was setting, making the string of lighters sunk there for coastal protection, stand out bold and black in sharp contrast to the hazy seawall half a mile further away. Gradually the shore lights began to appear but the afterglow put up a strong fight, enabling me to pick out the bold silhouette of St Peters Chapel at the northern edge of the flats. Now the sky was crystal clear save for a couple of gold streaks of cloud where the sun had gone down. Jupiter, seeming six inches across, already stood out boldly, high in the eastern sky. Two more wrecks dropped astern and I began to free the sheets as our course eased round into the River Blackwater. Once the threat of flying spray was over I shed my oilskin jacket and donned a duffle coat (ex Royal fleet Auxilary,- if only it could talk!) and gloves, for it was already cold and obviously going to get colder. Joy ducked into the cabin to make some cocoa and enjoy the warmth of the radiant heater and sensibly decided to stay there. The bright lights of the power station at Bradwell dominated the view ahead for the next hour. Everyone has their own definition of when they actually get into the River Backwater for Sales Point is a very blunt point anyway and made more so by the extensive drying mud flats. Two parallel roads at right angles to the beach in West Mersea point directly across the river towards St Peters Chapel so I use them as my benchmark. By now the sea astern was inky black as the sky filled with stars. Just below bright Jupiter I picked out the Seven Sisters which led me to Orion; not the Orion that dominates the high southern winter sky but an older tired version heeling over ready to duck below the western horizon. Now of course the rest of the ebb tide was against me until low water at about midnight and it would obviously be a long slow tip up river but this was a night to savour and no warm bunk could lure me from it. Joy went to sleep and left me alone with the night. Gradually the wind eased and once I passed the power station, the headsails fell limp as my course brought the wind right astern. The forecast was for the wind to go southwest and I determined to make the most of this fair wind. Already the green light on Osea pier stood out bold and clear, beckoning me home. A mile short of the well-lit pub at Steeple Stone, the wind died completely. For some time I had been measuring my steadily faltering progress by watching the flashing light on Thirslet Spit buoy against dim features on the distant north shore. The moment I realised that Shoal Waters was drifting backwards I anchored and dived into the cabin for a warm. It was just one hour to midnight. The mainsail was left up for already a faint ripple could be made out on the dark water near the southern shore. Within ten minutes I was under way again but the wind never really made up its` mind. An unusual, brilliantly lit, motor vessel with her charging engines throbbing away, was anchored off Goldhanger Creek buoy. She swung to the first of the flood as we slipped past and progress improved as the river narrowed between Osea Island and the Stansgate shore. Once the two vertical green lights on the old pier swept by, I eased over onto the covering mudflats and anchored, as my drying mooring would not cover until 0430 hrs.

The wind was steady from the southwest when I got under way at 0330 hrs but still very light. The night had lost its` magic. Jupiter had slipped below the shore but the green isophase light on the Blackwater S.C. grew larger as the silhouette of the clubhouse, once a cattle barn built into the seawall, grew firmer. A last glance astern showed a warm amber moon in its` last quarter, climbing out of the mist over the corner of Northey Island. In her full glory, ten days earlier, she had lighted my way down river at the start of this Easter cruise. I bid her adieu and concentrated on the club mooring buoys until my own came under the bow. As the sails came down my pally swan came alongside to welcome me home and help finish off the sliced bread. The sail seemed strangely crisp as I stowed it and the reason became clear when I got the cockpit tent up and tried to wipe away the dew on the afterdeck. It was frozen solid! By the time I had heated and eaten a tin of semolina (the fastest meal I know), and snuggled down into my sleeping bag, the first signs of dawn were evident through the port. I ducked my head into the warm pillow (Joy had kept the hot water bottle going) and woke later to find the boat high and dry in warm sunshine.

The brilliantly lighted vessel I had passed down river turned out to be the ex Trinity House service vessel Winston Churchill going up to Sadds` timber yard for a refit for civil use.