Today I was sailing up Hadleigh Ray, after a cracking tack east to the Crowstone from my Island YC mooring, when I was seemingly bombarded by dancing balerinas zipping up and over me… It was amazing.

See: https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=306441819566092&set=pcb.306443319565942&type=1&theater

I’d departed at a few minutes past nine. It was grey and a little forbidding, but forecast spoke of brightening skies and a little sunshine. It was bang on, for after an hour, the sun came peeking through. When that happens the world looks so different!

After tacking eastwards before getting a good reach in towards the Crowstone, during which I stood in the companionwy while the girl frolicked along on her own, I ran west along the shore to Bell Wharf, Leigh-on-Sea. On the way it was pleasing to see two school parties out on the shore, exploring and playing, and it’s late November! A group of men working on the ‘cinder’ path stopped work too and I chuckled as I saw them taking pictures…

Following that, I sailed at a pleasing rate out to the Ray Channel again, before running up between Two Tree Island and the Canvey Marshes. It was here that I was set upon by the diving, swerving and twisting flocks of waders!

The waterway is nearly clear of moored craft now, a lonely feeling, in many ways, but giving a seemingly open feel to even a fairly restricted stretch of water. I sailed up to by the old Salvation Army Wharf before turning and tacking out to beyond Canvey Point, where the mainsail was stowed. The boat and I then jogged back home under the jib, elation running through us…

Just off the berth were a clutch of Brent … as I luffed cross the ebb into my mooring they casually paddled into the saltings, seemingly, with out a care in the world. Well, apart from food, of course.

Grand!