Road block

On a fine summer’s morning, midweek, my new girlfriend Wendy and I played truant from work and drove to Maldon for a short sail.

I had recently enjoyed a circuit of nearby Northey Island with my Dad, so thought we could reenact it. The water was quite high so I opted for an anti-clockwise route to cross the Northey Causeway before the tide dropped. I didn’t fit on the outboard, as I envisaged a quiet sail in the light breeze. As we neared the island we could see a long ripple in the water, marking the location of the causeway.

‘We’ll never get over that,’ said Wendy. I pooh-poohed that. However, the nearer we got, the faster the boat was carried towards it, and despite my efforts to sail away, the boat came to a juddering stop.

As the tide dropped we were left parked, blocking the roadway.

A troop of small boy scouts walked over from the Island, to ask if they could help. Thanks, but sorry, no chance! A traffic jam built up. Embarrassed by the attention, we abandoned ship and sunbathed in a nearby field. A policeman on his bike arrived and wrote copiously in his notebook before departing without seeing us.

It was dark before we floated off, and a dense fog had descended.

We motored to ‘our’ side of the river but had little chance of finding our mooring. We could hear one of the big gravel barges approaching, but could not see it, so we were relieved to spot another buoy, and spent a cold night aboard – no bedding, no breakfast. We were very glad to regain our own mooring in the morning and drive home!