Chapter 3 Learning the Thames Estuary

Saturday dawned warm and sunny. Before the tide returned I slipped ashore for bread and milk and a one-inch O.S. map of the Swale for I had little urge to press on at once towards the South coast. A chap working on one of the small fleet of eighteen foot international dinghies moored there sent me on my way to Oare Creek for the weekend It was a steady run past the massive Horse Sand to pick up a trail of withies that led to the loveliest creek that I have ever found. What a contrast to the harbour at Whiststable! I moored opposite the little church and stayed all day Sunday. An elderly lady from a houseboat brought me a couple of eggs (rationed at this time), complete with a little salt in a wisp of paper. This was typical of the friendship and help that a youngster cruising in a small boat got in those days. During the day I walked round the western bank and down to Harty Ferry in warm sunshine. Life seemed good.

  On Monday I sailed with the ebb tide at 0450hrs for Margate but made little progress beating into the light northeasterly wind. By low water I had only reached Herne Bay, halfway to the North Foreland, and it began to pipe up. The lonely feeling of being out on an open hostile, shelterless coast overwhelmed me and I turned tail and ran back into the Swale. The fact was that I was just not capable of such a bold trip yet. It would be far better for me to spend the time exploring the Thames Estuary. Looking at the map, I noticed Windmill Creek running three miles into the Isle of Sheppey from the south and worked my way in there at high water. Zephyr lay comfortably against the rotting timber of an old barge wharf a mile in and I stayed all day Tuesday walking over the island to the north shore to enjoy the fine view across the Thames whence I had come. More shopping included a Valour wick stove for slow cooking and warming the boat. That evening the first rain of the trip tested the tent, which proved to be completely waterproof.

Leaving at high water on Wednesday morning Zephyr worked her way westward through the Swale, finding plenty of room under the old iron swing bridge at Kingsferry. It was very squally off Queenborough and I was glad to pass into the shelter of the extensive marshes south of the river Medway where I was to learn a most important lesson about tides. It was already past springs. I worked my way south as the tide filled the channels towards Halstow and eventually put her right against the saltings handy for the seawall near to a cherry orchard. The tide left me at 1630hrs and did not come back until 1100 hrs the following Monday morning! I am one sailor who never forgets that successive high tides in the Thames area between three o’clock and nine o’clock get lower every day and must be treated with caution when beaching. Now, I always watch the water drop at least six inches before letting the boat ground and begin to dry. The days passed pleasantly enough with fine easterly weather under clear blue skies and I walked for miles in the Kent countryside. Returning to the boat on Sunday, I was delighted to see that the tide had been back into the little mud harbour and moved my waterboots, which I had left stuck in the mud beside the boat, a hint that I was not smart enough to take. Walks out over the mudflats showed that it would not be necessary to retrace my route back to the main river as I could cut through the saltings westward at high tide directly towards Chatham.

Monday brought the tide back but the weather changed completely, with only the lightest of airs from the west under an overcast sky. By the end of the day I had merely reached the entrance to Otterham Creek. Tuesday brought strong westerly winds with plenty of rain so I moved in close to the shelter of the seawall for the day. As I wanted to use the flood tide up the River Medway, I let her drop out into the middle of the creek on the night tide so that she would float as early as possible next day. My sleep was interrupted by voices and I looked out to find a barge leaving under sail with the crew wondering if I was adrift. Next day I bought a riding light on the basis that it was better to be alive and broke than dead with thirtyfive shillings in the bank. Each day I made a little progress westward, the main trouble being that in order to get ashore, I had to beach the boat and thus did not float early enough next day to get the full benefit of the six hours of flood tide. It rained and blew hard from the southwest each day. On Thursday morning in the Hoo Marshes I lit the wick burner stove early for warmth and went to sleep again. It must have been turned up too high for I woke to find black soot everywhere. Luckily I found a public bath house in Chatham. Friday found me near one of the old abandoned cement works along the upper Medway. It seemed to have all the air of the overgrown deserted city in Kiplin’s `Jungle book`. After the water had gone, small boys galore appeared through the mud to visit me. I was surprised to see one of them taking off his muddy shirt and putting it back on inside out,

“So as me mum won’t see I got it dirty”, he told me cheerfully.

On Saturday I made steady progress through heavy rain under Aylesford Bridge and up to the massive lock sea lock at Allington. Once through onto fresh water I found that there was little wind among the trees for me to sail but a motor barge gave me a tow for a mile or so until I found a nice spot to lay alongside the towpath. The sun burst through soon afterwards and that night I slept soundly with no need to keep one ear open in fear that the winds or tides would disturb me. On Sunday morning I moved over to the western bank and while walking along past the moored craft, noticed some galvanised pipe cots in the bushes. I found the owner who willingly gave me one. Among my gear was stretcher canvas which I had bought to use between two oars but had not found anywhere in the boat to fit it up. Now it fitted the pipe cot frame which I set up between the centre thwart and the stern bench and found it to be sheer paradise after three weeks sleeping on a hard steel box. Later in the week I cut a little out of one end so that it fitted under the foredeck starboard side mast. All the spare gear could be stowed on the bunk and when the tent was folded I left it fixed to the coamings from the mast round the starboard side as far as the centre thwart, merely lifting it over the boom and tucking it under itself over the head of the bunk. Life began to get organised which is the secret of all small boat cruising. I didn’t realise it but the best of the trip was about to come.

The wind was westerly on Sunday and I passed out through the sea lock just before high water. A warm sun took the place of the previous weeks rain. At Aylesford Bridge I had to wait for the tide to fall low enough for me to pass under at 1700 hrs. Once I was clear of the trees, the miles began to flash by, Snodland 1800 hrs, Wouldham 1830 hrs, Borstal 1900 hrs and under Rochester bridge at 1910 hrs to moor off Gillingham just after 2000 hrs. Next day I did some shopping and sailed over to Stoke Creek on the north bank to wait for a favourable slant to enable me to cross the Thames back to Essex. There was a chap there with a houseboat for which he was building a jetty out of massive planks twenty feet long or more and many inches thick, all of which he had found floating about the river. Quite a thought for night sailing! God help any small craft, which hit one of them while sailing hard. He was the local tallyman for the Isle of Grain and took me round the island. Little did I realise that this was the last chance I should get see it before the oil refineries spread over the area engulfing the old pier at Port Victoria. One evening I left my waterboots in the mud by the side of the boat and forgot them when I bedded down for the night. The night tide floated them off and a new pair cost me thirty shillings, which made it an expensive lesson. Always tie them to the boat by using the holes near the top of the boots on the inside edge.

On Thursday afternoon I sailed as soon as Zephyr floated, about two hours before high water, and set off for Havengore. By this time I was feeling on top of the world as life became more comfortable and my competence increased daily. The compulsion to sing when out of earshot of my fellow men was irresistible and I sang so heartily, so often, that I began to get a sore throat. Off Sheerness the waves were rather too big for my liking so I took down the mainsail as it would be a difficult ask once I got out onto the broad Thames. The gunter rig has its good points but it is the very devil to lower singlehanded in a lop (I have since realised that this can be overcome by using a double topping lift so that the gaff and sail must fall on top of the boom fully under control). Things were much quieter under jib only but it is a small sail and slower progress meant that I would be too late to get across the sands to the bridge at Havengore before they dried. The coastline looked bewildering flat and I didn’t realise that the outer measured mile beacons could be used as leading marks to the entrance to the gore. My sounding pole touched miles out but the depth shallowed very slowly until I grounded still miles from the seawall. By time that I had bailed out and made cup of tea, the water was completely out of sight! A friend had lent me his copy of `Riddle of the Sands` to read on this trip and thus I remembered to put up the riding light and lay out the anchor before walking to the bridge keeper’s cottage to arrange to pass through next morning. Little did I realise at the time that it was a three-mile walk. Still it was pleasant enough splashing along through the shallow pools and had anyone called `Davis`, I am sure that I would have answered automatically. The sun was low in the sky now and somehow the sands seemed to reflect a strange blue gold sheen. Fortunately I remembered to take a bearing on the boat with my ex WD handbearing compass before turning along the deepening creek to the bridge. After a pleasant chat with the keeper, I walked back into the night. To my dismay the anchor light was indistinguishable among the maze of bright lights over on the Kentish shore. I walked on the compass bearing, swinging along into the breeze, thrilled by a sense of loneliness. A sea bird or two flapped up into the darkness as I splashed by. Regularly I dropped to my knees to try and pick out the riding light above the shore lights. It was a relief to get on board again. I do not think that I have ever been more pleased to find a friend.

A rough calculation showed that I would float about 0345hrs next morning. I need have had no fears of oversleeping for the tide came in with a fine southerly breeze behind when it returned at 0340hrs. The boat did everything but stand on her head and it was only with the greatest difficulty that I made a cup of cocoa. She was soon snubbing hard at her anchor as the waves began to come over the foredeck. It was no good leaving before the watershed covered but eventually I had to move on. As she raced along through the shallow water, waves curled up astern and I had an interesting lesson in catching them just right on the quarter so that they didn’t break over me with a cold douche. The bridge went up at 0445 hrs as a golden orb burst above the horizon in the east. I was soon swallowed up by dark clouds and rain was on the way by the time I reached the River Roach and turned west to Rochford where I dried alongside a little jetty by a farm. A cowman at the farm was a keen sailor and I was able to dry my gear by their boiler later in the day.

On Saturday I woke fresh and fit for a day’s sport. The tide turned at 0600 hrs and I sailed off into a glaring sunrise with a growing westerly breeze behind me. Progress was fine but rain came before I reached the River Crouch at 0730 hrs. Out in the Ray Sand Channel there was a far more wind than I liked and after a sharp splitting sound in the tiller, I dropped the mainsail and continued under jib alone. It had been my plan to visit Maldon but there was three hours to wait for the tide and with memories of the first trip with Peter a year ago, I decided to carry on for Pin Mill. It was a wild scene off the Knoll that morning. A keel-boat passed me beating south and at one time or another I saw most of her bottom as she pitched into the rising summer gale. A dark patch was creeping up behind me and I quote direct from the log here. `Rain and hail like bullets, wind must have been gale force, the boat seemed to fly along. Waves mounted, the troughs vanished in the mist while the crests stood out cold and black like mountains in the clouds. The sheer force almost tore me out of my seat. Stangely, I wasn’t frightened, just very alert and tense. Later I learned that one boat was dismasted in the River Blackwater and two of my friends lost their mainsails in that squall but remember they were made of cotton in those days and almost certainly prewar. Heaven only knows what would have happened if I had been caught with my mainsail up! A calmish patch followed but the wind soon settled down to a steady blow from the southwest . There were plenty of squalls about but they kept clear of me until I reached the shelter of Harwich Harbour. The coast runs east at first but soon swings more northerly and I gradually began to enjoy some shelter from the shore. Once past the cliffs of Walton on Naze, I began to look for the seaplane crane that was recommended by Francis B.Cooke as the guide to Harwich five miles away. It meant bearing up more than I expected and I wondered if I could fetch into the harbour under jib only. To make matter worse, the jib began to tear from the clew making it out of the question to luff up to the large waves coming in on the beam as I crossed Dovercourt Bay. The only thing to do was to bear away which carried me down to leeward. The mainsail was not reefed and it would take too long to reef while I drifted eastward. Anyway, I passed into Harwich at 1225hrs having made the thirty-five miles passage from Rochford in eight and a quarter hours, most of the way under jib only.

Continued