Ah yes, it’s that time again. A time for ripened fruits, glorious colour and misty mornings which often last well on into the afternoon…
A couple of weeks ago we drove out to Dartford taking in a visit to Bluewater where a M&S do a good selection of mens bits, then we drove into old Dartford and parked up in Hythe Street … a further journey was made for a walk out to the Thames shore a few days later. The creek side walk (along the River Darent) is splendid indeed.
Dartford Creek barrier from the inland side… Note: Mate striding on regardless of what her other half is up to…
I’d wanted to go take a look at the old lock which retained a level of water up at the hythe and other quays into the town. There is a trust being formed to rejuvenate the waterway and instil the maritime tradition back into the heart of Dartford. See: https://www.facebook.com/nick.ardley#!/groups/1493013297641232/
Anyway … we came across a mass of wild English rose bushes laden with hips … and an apple tree similarly dripping apples. My good mate soon had us picking. Upon arriving home she boiled and simmered the rose hips and produced a thick liquor – this was added to a pile of apples, softened, then boiled with sugar and a lemon. The result is, most amazingly, pleasant tasting and something different on our breakfast toast!
All it cost was a bit of sugar…
Now one of my pleasures in autumn is getting out onto the water. I had a glorious weekend over on the Medway sailing around with another Finesse last weekend.
On the Medway, drifting into Stangate Creek … taken from dinghy after rowing off! Whimbrel and Awel O Wynt.
This was followed by a typical high pressure week of long sun-filled days. However, the wind was easterly … picking up during the afternoon to a strength that boiled the surface of the Lower Thames into a white froth. I did lots of little jobs around Whimbrel’s decks, ignoring the rise and fall of the water in my creek around me…
Come Friday and the wind had dropped. The high pressure was moving away, slowly and during the following week (morning and evening neaps) it was going to be blustery with showers. The week and half late summer was due to end! But, bliss-O-bliss, I got away. I’d tried to contact two friends, but all were otherwise engaged – one dealing with a new boat (Now he’s got to sell his old one!) – the other was painting, at home!
Who’d have thought autumn had arrived, eh…
Clearing Smallgains Creek, motor sailing against a NE 3-4, I was soon tacking back and forth between a 2m line with loads of centre plate down against the tide, eastwards, down the course of the Ray Channel. It was gorgeous, but I missed my good mate. She wasn’t far away, just over the hill enjoying a coffee and natter with an old friend at a ‘tea’ shop in Hadleigh, I sigh, gently…
Amazingly, as I came abreast of the Essex Yacht Club a little sail popped out from the shore … ‘home-made’ I thought. I guessed straight way who it was … ex Finesse 24 owner John C doing a runner from his painting task at home (bad boy!). Ah yes, but, when the tide’s in, the wind is fine and it’s a nice day, there’s only one option … go sailing!
We sailed along chatting while I avoided running into anything. A motor boat with less draft than me was sort of hugging the buoyed channel (Why?) so I maintained my right of way as a sailing craft and kept on, but ready for action … much to ‘his’ astonishment, as he went full astern! He gesticulated, so I spread my arms indicating loads of water, ‘he’ was clearly fuming … My pal had warned me that the boat was likely to ‘come on’… I knew this from many hours sailing in these waters…
Fishing boats with loads of draft I’ll bend for but not shallow draft skimming dishes! The little dinghy ‘hung’ on my protected side… We broke away and I sailed off towards the Ray, skirting the edges of Two Tree Island. Here clouds of Brent geese circled and honked above me – they’d a couple of hours until the eel grass would be uncovered.
Clouds of Brent geese flew around me awaiting the fall of the tide and the succulent eel grass on the flats…
I sailed blissfully up the water separating Canvey Island and the Two Tree Island shore, then along beneath Hadleigh downs. Just below the moorings of the Benfleet Yacht Club I spied a lighter with a tug approaching. It looked like a half completed conversion job, but the hull clearly hadn’t been preserved – why do people do this? Here I turned for home, having to long and short tack initially against the last of the flood…
Tug and barge…
It was a thoroughly enjoyable beat down past the entrance to Smallgains Creek, the tide wafting me in the right direction. In the saltings the long stalks of sea aster waved in the tide, their heads full of developing seed soon to be cast to tide and breeze ready for germination in the coming spring… I love this time of the year: it is full of happenings, much of it of the natural kind, with the promise of renewal…
A tern – soon these lovely little birds will have set course for their wintering grounds.
I spotted some terns, wishing them well for their coming journey: soon they’ll have flown off to their wintering grounds, then autumn will have well and truly set in… But my sail wasn’t yet over: after stowing the mainsail and readying fenders, I jogged in over the ebb to sail into my berth, serenely happy… some three and half hours after leaving.
Jogging into Smallgains Creek on the ebb…