I was up just before half past six in the morning to find that there wasn't a breath of breeze and barely a hundred yards of visibility due to a heavy mist. No sign of the forecast F1 to F2 from the South East!
Low water wasn't until about 10-o-clock so we topped up the stove burners with meths and Glen cooked bacon and egg buttys for breakfast.
By just shy of 8-o-clock, visibility was improving as the sun got into its stride and we fired up the outboard and set off downriver making 3.5 to 4 knots at about half throttle to conserve fuel.
As we approached the moorings at Burnham there was a wall of mist ahead of us and at 9:23 I decided not to risk it and turned back upriver. Looking at the GPS track later I found that we were within yards of the Fairway No.15 buoy and I never even saw it! We dropped the hook in Cliff Reach to wait for things to improve - within 20 minutes we could see all the way downriver and so it was up with the anchor and off again.
A bit of a breeze was starting to come in and as we turned into the Roach it was up with the sails and off with the engine. Fifty minutes later, as we approached Pagelsham, the breeze died and it was back to motoring again.
We pressed on upstream of Pagelsham but the river starts to shoal rapidly and with little to see or do we turned back downstream to explore up the Yokesfleet. We tried sailing again with what breeze there was but it just wasn't enough to fill the sails so we dropped the hook off Shelford creek at 2:00pm for lunch and a snooze. It being too shallow to stay there the night, and with a bit of breeze to play with, we sailed off the anchor at 16:45 and headed back down the Roach under sail.
Putting about in the top end of the Branksfleet, we tried to stem the tide under sail but the dying breeze wasn't giving us enough drive so it was back to engine power to motor back upriver to find an anchorage for the night. I was keen to explore the possibilities of Pagelsham Pool as a quiet anchorage off the main river channel but found less than three metres even in the entrance at more than half tide so we anchored in the main river just downstream of the entrance to the pool.
Dinner on board was beans and things from a tin with a slice of bread followed by a raid on the beer stocks. Having found that yet another can of Tanglefoot had leaked, fortunately only into the bin bag I'd wrapped around the cans after the last whiffy bilge excercise, the Bosun decided it was unwise to put any of 'em back in store and, apart from the couple of cans I managed to snaffle, proceeded to demolish the lot!
It was well gone midnight by the time we finished chatting and boozing by which time I was on to the decaf coffee and rum. Occasional forays sticking my head out of the hatch for a smoke were made special by the fantastic night sky. There's so much more to see when it's properly dark and there's no street lighting washing out the dimmer stars. I set the alarm for the approximate time of high water and we hit the sack for the night.
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