Our sail from Marconi to Bradwell was in bright sunshine, reaching in a southerly breeze. We passed around the Stone Sailing Club course where Shearwater catamarans were holding their national championships. The shearwater is an old catamaran class but has been brought up to date with modern laminate sails, they were certainly quite quick. It took us 1.5 hours to sail the 5 miles to Bradwell against the tide but it was a very pleasant, gentle sail, finishing in Bradwell Marina for a late lunch.
Shearwater cats.
Thames barge Thistle.
We met our friends, Sue and Nick Hillman, in the Green Man pub in Bradwell village for a couple of beers, some food and a couple of hours catching up, as you do. Nick recommended a walk around the sea wall so that set the plan for the next day, which dawned bright and sunny. The sea wall gave us some good views of smacks and more modern boats, racing in West Mersea week plus the sailing barge Will Everard, coming in from the Wallet channel. We cut inland to Bradwell village when we got to St. Peter's chapel, reputedly one of the oldest churches in the country, built in 654AD by St Cedd of Lindisfarne, brother of Chad who brought Christianity to Mercia. The next place of interest, as it was pretty warm, was the Cricketers Arms for a welcome cold drink and back through the village to the marina and dinner on board.
Smack racing
On Saturday we planned to sail to the River Crouch and needed to get out of the marina while there was still some ebb tide to get us out of the Blackwater then cross the Spitway bank at slack water and carry the flood tide up the Swallowtail channel into the Crouch. The advice was to leave by 0915 at the latest to ensure enough water in the Bradwell creek. We actually left the marina at 0835 and half way along the buoyed channel saw the echo sounder at 1.5m (we draw 1.8m!) and felt the keel dragging in the mud. Fortunately the mud was soft and we pressed on to find some deeper water a bit further on. We later looked at some surveys produced by www.crossingthethamesestuary.com which showed the shallowest water exactly where we found it, with deeper soundings actually outside the buoyed channel!
Bradwell creek near low water.
Once we were out into the Blackwater we had plenty of time to get to the Wallet Spitway buoy, about 10 miles out, and so sailed into a gradually building SE breeze in the warm sunshine, a very pleasant change from the trip into the Blackwater only a few days ago. As planned we crossed the Spitway channel and carried the tide 10 miles back into the River Crouch, still in warm sunshine. We turned from the Crouch into the River Roach and, by 1345, were anchored off the eastern bank for an afternoon's sunbathing. Now there's a first for this trip, the admiral even had her bikini on!
Barge Ironsides preparing to anchor next to us on the Roach.
On Sunday we moved into Burnham Yacht Harbour to leave the boat and travel by train back to Lichfield to attend the funeral of Robyn's friend, Charlotte Watsham, who died on her 28th birthday after an 18 year fight with Wilson's disease, including 3 liver transplants. A very moving occasion for a courageous girl. We returned to Burnham on Tuesday afternoon to a forecast of gales on Wednesday and heavy rain so no plans to move on. We thought the weather would moderate enough for a move back to the Roach on Wednesday afternoon to give us a head start with a passage to Ramsgate on Thursday but as the day progressed the forecast was starting to give force 6 winds on Thursday so we revised our plans, now intending to move to the Roach on Thursday and head for Ramsgate on Friday.
Egret in Burnham yacht harbour.
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