EAST COAST RIVERS
Tucked away in this delta of marshy inlets and marinas is a fascinating history, as Dick Durham discovers
Dick Durham on the delights of the Crouch and Blackwater
Afew disembodied trees standing like chess pieces in the distance is not much of a landfall, but Essex is a low county, like the Netherlands, her counterpart coastline across the North Sea, and somewhere to the right of the floating tree-line is the River Crouch.
I have a sea breeze filling in from the south-east which gives my 25ft gaffer, Betty II, a fine reach up the south-westerly running ditch that lies between two of the East Coast’s greatest sandbanks: the Maplin and the Buxey.
We skirt around the large shallow horseshoe mid-channel which is Sunken Buxey, and the glistening head of a curious seal is momentarily mistaken for a buoy. With the flood tide swirling around the real cardinals, we push on into Shore Ends where at last the Crouch climbs out of submarine contours depicted on a chart-plotter, to something visible as a river. Foulness Island is to port and the reclaimed acres of the Dengie Peninsula to starboard, upon which is harvested purple alfalfa, the feed of race-horses.
Soon, off to port, the buttress of monotonous sea wall opens up to reveal the River Roach, the Crouch’s smaller twin which snakes away up to the ancient weather-boarded village of Rochford.
Upriver of the Roach are the wharf and cranes in place to receive ships bringing spoil from London’s Crossrail excavations, being used to create a wetland paradise at Wallasea Island. And so onto the river’s great pearl, Burnham-on-crouch, which appears ahead as a blockade of sailing vessels moored from one side of the river to the other.
Dominating the starboard bank is the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club’s
Grade II listed white multistorey HQ, where I planned to stop for the night.
The river rushes on for many miles and there are moorings, mud-berths and marinas along it’s increasingly beautiful length. The sides of the river rise up from the marsh of the lower reaches, trees grow, vines ripen, and wheat turns yellow all the way up to Battlesbridge, the head of the Crouch, which any vessel can make on the high water. Above Hullbridge the river dries out at low water.
Ashore there are pubs and restaurants, supermarkets and shops, but for me no visit is complete without a meal and a pint in The White Harte — the best place for longshore gossip.
Early the next morning, the river is dead, stilled with high water slack and not a breath of wind.
I await the start of the ebb and slowly drift back down river, trimming the rig.
I am heading for the Raysand Channel, a swatchway of mud slightly lower than the Dengie Flat to the west and the Buxey to the east. It dries out completely at low water, but two hours either side of high water provides a short cut to the River Blackwater, rather than going all the way east to the Spitway which is navigable at all states of the tide.
A rusty yellow spherical buoy with the word RAY painted on it appears on the north side of the river a couple of miles from Shore Ends and I steer Betty II out of the channel and across the shoals.
I’m looking for a red and white buoy which marks the end of the swatchway and the deeper water clear of the sands. Betty II draws 4ft 9in with her centreplate lowered, but only 2ft 7in with it raised, and now was a good time to raise it as the sea turned a cow-brown colour.
The red and white buoy is – or was, this was July 2018 – in the wrong place. It needs to be moved about half a mile to the east.
The river rushes on, with moorings, mud-berths and marinas along its increasingly beautiful length
HIDDEN GEMS 1 YOKESFLEET CREEK
The quintessential Essex anchorage on the River Roach — nothing there but marsh, mud and sky and a very good chance of complete solitude, too.
‘This is an extraordinarily snug berth in any wind and a haunt of wild-fowl,’ wrote F.B. Cooke in his book Small Yacht Cruising, published in 1937. ‘You can lie afloat there in any craft drawing not more than 5ft of water.’ Nothing has changed but I would add that deeper yachts can moor there too, although you might ‘bottom out’ at low water.
2 PAGLESHAM
Found on the River Roach, Frank Shuttlewood’s old boatbuilding shed still stands on the wrong side of the sea wall, the build scene of many a barge, smack and classic yacht. You can land on a hard beside the old shed and walk up a rutted lane to the Plough & Sail, a pub with grub turned out by Jamie Oliver’s uncle. Under the saltings are the remains of Charles Darwin’s Beagle.
Her anchor is in the front garden of an old coastguard cottage.
3 BATTLESBRIDGE
Situated at the top of the River Crouch, Battlesbridge dries completely at low water. But there is a staging you can lean against if you want to stay longer than just doing lunch. Roy Hart is a well-known local yachtsman whose staging it is and he loves to see craft using it. The Barge pub is famed for good fare and people drive for miles to buy antiques at the many and varied stalls here.
4 THE STONE
The water here on the
River Blackwater runs deep, clear and clean and with a shingle beach it’s the best spot for bathing in summer. You can always find a spare mooring. Come ashore to ask it that’s OK with Stone
Sailing Club, which runs a friendly bar with food. It is exposed in any winds from the northerly quarter.
Just downriver is moored the Ross Revenge, home to Radio Caroline.
5 OSEA ISLAND
So if the wind is in the north simply go further up the River Blackwater and anchor under Osea Island on the opposite shore. It’s a lovely spot and visiting yachtsmen are permitted to land on the sandy beach, even though the island is privately owned. The island was once a home for recovering alcoholics. The buoy just upriver, called The Doctor, was where bottles of booze, brought downriver from Maldon by misguided sympathisers, were stowed for those struggling to dry-out.
6 WEST MERSEA YACHT CLUB
Tucked away up Mersea Fleet, this is the best situated clubhouse anywhere on the East Coast and a favourite of many including the late, great Maurice Griffiths, former editor of Yachting Monthly.
I checked the chart and ran off a track from the RAY buoy to the Buxey Beacon, 030¡M, and continued right through the Raysand without further trouble.
From the Buxey Beacon I steered due north for a mile, taking Betty II’S keel over Roman artefacts; the Roman fort of Othona was hereabouts. I then headed north-east and picked up the Knoll northerly cardinal buoy which is the first of a set of buoys marking the entrance to the rivers Blackwater and Colne.
I was now stopped in the water; the ebbtide was still running and now it was against me, I just had enough breeze to hold her in place and sat there enjoying the peace until a fine sea breeze from the south-east filled in and sent me spilling westward over strangely-shaped shoals, the Eagle, the Knoll, and the Bench Head.
Up towards the Nass Beacon marking the channels into Mersea Quarters, the sea breeze increased to a Force 4 and Betty II was flying into the South Channel under Great Cob Island, soaring inland ahead of the flood. Being solo I could not leave the helm to lift some plate and instead tore on, rolling the jib and staysail away after gybing over into Tollesbury Fleet.
Two hands from the local marina, tending the port and starboard buoys, looked up in astonishment as Betty II’S shadow raced over them as she entered Woodrolfe Creek. Just abreast the lightship I moored in the saltings, rounded up and ran her into the mud. The dinghy ran up and nutted the transom as I nipped on deck, dropped the mainsail, fished a nearby mooring buoy and made fast.
You also have to take the mud at the salty town of Maldon at the head of the River Blackwater. It is soft enough to sheath the deepest of keels and leave you upright and there is a visitor’s pontoon at Hythe Quay. Here is the East Coast Mecca for the Thames sailing barge. Most notable is the newly built Blue Mermaid a ‘tinpot’ as steel barges are known. She is named after the original which was blown up by a Luftwaffe mine during the Second World War with the loss of both crew.
The sea breeze increased to a Force 4 and Betty II was flying into the South Channel