In actual fact, I suppose autumn has been with us for nearly a month, however, it doesn’t feel like it: the fine summer continued to run on and blend blissfully with fine weather as the equinox passed us by. Then, of course, the season really let us know where we are… A week went by when the tides were right, but nothing else was. So, the mate and I set to and completed a make over of one of the borders in the garden!
Apparently, I’m told, the mate had been spreading it around that this was a BIG job. It might have been: an over-grown lilac needed removing … very few leaves and no new growth appeared this last summer. Having cut all the branches off I got set to dig out the trunk. It felt ‘wobbly’ so after a good yank to one side, it snapped off some 400mm below the ground level … one rotten root had been holding it! A good deep dig over, then the contents of a full compost bin set the bed up for a bundle of perenials that will flower when we are home in the autumn… Job Done!
Back to thinking of sailing…
It had been two weeks between my last outing and today’s foray up to the Island’s (Canvey) other yacht club. Showers were threatened when listening to the morning BBC Essex forecast, but let that not stop one… As my mate always says, “…you won’t melt…”
I felt a little guilty: men and machines were getting worked up for a lift out session down around my club’s slipway, but hey, I was set to look after Number One – Me! My soul needed soothing…
It was glorious. It was just on one (p.m.) as I left the creek, having set my sails off the mooring and spinning the boat about to run outward bound, with thoughts of a ‘run’ up to Benfleet with the tide. A group of ‘loafers’ leaning on the club’s mooring walkway were watching, awaiting for me to go aground – sorry guys … it doesn’t bother me and it wasn’t about to happen.
Reaching up past the inner shore of Canvey Marsh towards the Two Tree Island hard the water was alive with what seemed hundreds of Brent geese. A tack was needed before long … then the wind became a little more kindly and I reached deep up the creek to just below the ‘Benfleet’s’ moorings. The sea wall was alive with many walkers too.
Whimbrel sailing along Benfleet Creek in the autumn – archive picture: I didn’t have my camera aboard.
Passing a couple of channels that run into the western end of the saltings along that stretch I saw wave after wave of Brents fill the placid water, honking and barking in their chattery manner, amongst the gently waving cord grass. I’m no bird specialist, but these numbers must be in the thousands. Wow. It is a privilege, I feel, to be able to see these birds at such close quarters and it is one of the special joys of autumn and winter sailing in my patch.
The terns have all gone, I assume, for I’ve not seen any for several weeks. The over-wintering waders will be congegating soon in large numbers too. I’m looking forward to the aerial dances performed by knot and their hangers on: dunlin, oyster catchers and others often join in, if only as they all take off as the wash waves from ships traversing sea reach rolls in to caress the stripped clay around the island’s eastern marshes…
A flask of home made soup fortified me on the way – chicken and lots of good vegetable – anyway, a couple of short tacks got me through a small group of Benfleet boats still in around the lower end of their shoreside trots.
Reaching the club, I saw it was busy down by their landing pontoon with boats awaiting their turn for a lift out – must be something in the air: it was going on at both ends – so I made a snap decision to spin the boat off the club house! The, sliding over to the shallows where the racing spring tide current was less, I slipped away eastwards with ease, supping my recently made mug of tea.
The mate asked me to give the boat her apologies … she had some piccalilli to make and wanted a quiet afternoon… (I arrived home to find her asleep! When she awakes I’ll be able to say that Whimbrel shed a few tears at her absence…) Clearing the Benfleet’s moorings an ominously dark cloud filled sky that had hung tantalisingly close to the sun, to westwards, crept east. The resulting short deluge gave the decks a good rinse, with large droplets plopping in the remains of my tea!
What the heck: the sun soon came out and I enjoyed a glorious reach back to the creek…
It was grand, and the pickle looks good too!
The mate’s piccallili…