First sail of the year: Medway Estuary 10th March 2012

Since I have been Canoe Sailing for the last six years nearly all of it has been in the South West, as my family live there, very close to the Dart River and Estuary. But living in London means Sailing is expensive in travel costs and not as frequent as I would wish. Looking closer to my home the Medway Estuary seems to offer great possibilities for canoe sailing in the South East. Flowing out from Kent the river winds its way past the quays of Rochester and docks of Chatham before opening up into a wide expanse of marshes, Islands and mud banks before entering onto the end of the Thames Estuary. 

The history of the Medway is fascinating, with a long maritime and naval past, the remnants of which dot the landscape ranging from Elizabethan castles to Victorian gun batteries. Perhaps the most notable event occurring in 1667 the Dutch arrived during the second Anglo Dutch war to stir things up a bit, capturing and burning the capital ships of the Royal Navy, setting fire to the principal naval dockyard of the time and causing fear, panic and confusion throughout. It was at this time Sir William Batten made his famous remark “By God. I think the Devil shits Dutchmen!”  The Estuary is now free from the threat of the Dutch but perhaps faces a far greater danger should it be the site of "Boris Island"; the current Mayor of London's fantastical proposition to build an Airport either on a man-made Island in the Thames, by the mouth of the Medway or on the Isle of Grain which is its Northern shore. The facts of thousands of birds living  breeding and flying around here in an area that is a protected under European law and the presence of a mere1500 tonnes of TNT explosives on the sunken liberty ship SS Richard Montgomery at the mouth of the Medway are apparently mere trifles  to our dear leader. We shall see. In the meantime the Medway is industrialised to some extent along its Northern edges with power stations and container ports but it still offers a semi wildness landscape of mud flats, salt marshes and low lying islands bounded on the South by oast houses and orchards all just a few miles from the megatropolis of London.

The Bridge to Sheerness.

 

So it was in early March I made my way to the Isle of Sheppey, to the now sleepy but once important town of Queenborough to join a group paddle that was to celebrate the launch of a series of downloadable guides and videos for canoeists wanting to explore the tidal Medway. http://www.discoveryourestuary.com/ 

Queenborough Church

This seemed a good way of getting a feel for the Estuary for the first time and be in company. The weather conditions were very favourable; light F2-3 winds and a spring like 15 degrees promised.
Somehow I managed to forget how to get to Queenborough and I had left my sat-nav in my work car so I arrived somewhat late, most of the paddlers were already waiting on the slip. As it was the first sail of the year I needed to take some time sorting out my canoe, inflating and attaching the side air bags etc. checking that I had everything in it’s proper place So by the time I got onto the slip, the paddlers had left!

Queenborough Slip: Accessible at all states of tide.

I wasn't too bothered as I was slightly unsure how my sailing canoe would "interface" with a guided paddle anyway. As I trundled down the slip I could just see the back markers of the group disappearing up the Swale and into the distance. After unfurling the sail and then threading the jib halyard I was all set to begin the 2012 season!
 Launching into the Swale the incoming tide was against me but with a Westerly F2 beam reach even in light winds I was delighted at how the Solway Dory Curlew was able to punch against the tide. Once out on the Medway the tide was with me but now I had to close haul down the Estuary, dropping the jib to enable better pointing into the wind seemed like a good idea. 

The estuary was quite murky to start with but the sun was gradually burning off the low cloud, unlike the estuaries in the South West, which have been my normal sailing areas, the Medway shore is very flat, the islands are low and undistinguished, I found it was very easy to get disorientated when tacking. The most obvious landmarks is the huge tower of Grain power station looming over the Estuary with a slightly sinister presence, further down into the estuary I could see the animal-like shapes of Thames Port Container cranes seemingly herding across the skyline. There was very little traffic on the Estuary apart from a few fishing boats and a one man hovercraft that noisily sped past. There were a couple of huge flat bottomed barges moored up which I kept a good distance from, those things give me the Willes: The surface current flows straight under those things rather then being pushed around them, meaning a capsize in front of them would see you potentially forced under and possibly pinned to the bottom! After beating up the Estuary past Chetney Marshes on my left  I turned into the entrance of Stangate creek, the tide against wind here or possibly a sand bar  creating a bit of bump at its mouth which might be something to watch out for in stronger winds. Once in to the creek I practised my hoving-to skills with my jib while scanning the horizon with a small pair of bin's to hunt for the elusive paddlers.

Hove-to on Stangate Creek.

After trying to remember the advertised route they were taking I eventually found the group tucked behind a disused pier on the southern side of Burntwick Island.

The Island was once a Victorian rubbish dump and the foreshore is festooned with bits of old bottles and ceramics. After ten minutes or so of my arrival the paddlers set off over the top of the now mostly flooded Island to investigate an abandoned WW2 barrack block. 

With the paddle group on Burntwick Island

I left them and set off back up Stangate Creek. The day was now really sunny and beautiful, the sun having burnt off the low cloud and the Estuary was full of wildlife, thousands of birds noisily calling and wheeling in the clear blue sky overhead, a solitary seal accompanied me for a while popping his whiskered head up now and then.

The Sun has burnt through!

I met back up with the group as we took the high tide short cut of Shepard's Creek, cutting through Deadman's Island and back to the Swale and across to the slip at Queenborough. A very successful first exploration of canoe sailing in the South East, I will be returning very shortly! 

Map of trip, about 7 miles or so in total.