Published charts do not give a great deal of help in finding the lesser-known anchorages in the north-west, Lancashire and the Lake District, The booklet published for the Morecambe Bay Sailing Association for Blackpool and Fleetwood Yacht Club gives very good directions for a number of them, including the Ravenglass estuary and the Alt at the entrance to the Mersey though it is out of date for the Formby Channel. It would be worth trying to get a copy if you intend to sail in these waters. The Duddon is not included. Here the Admiralty Chart is misleading, saying it is buoyed when it is not. However, with the help of an ordnance map the way in can easily be discovered.

THE ALT is a useful hole at the entrance to the Mersey. The sketch chart shows the way in alongside the bank of stones where a sewer runs out to Outer Corporation Mark. When the gutter can be entered from this mark, I was told by the locals, the revetment bounding Crosby Channel is well covered. There is a good deal of stony debris on both sides of the gutter at its entrance. It is marked first by three poles — leave the first to port, second to starboard third to port. After that the channel is marked by withies, the seaward ones having twigs on top.

There is 4’ 6” 2½ hours each side of HW. Moorings in the gutter dry out. The bank outside the moorings at Hightown, between the gutter and Crosby Channel, dries 22 — 26 feet. Anchorage is good in the gutter near the clubhouse and slip of Blundellsands S.C. where visitors by boat are welcomed.

The Formby Channel used to provide a short cut north from here, where the main Crosby Channel used by the Mersey shipping swings away WNW. There is said to be no Formby Channel now, sands having blocked it, but dinghies can safely cut N by W from the mast of the wrecked “Penrhyn” near Gamma lightfloat, for several hours at high water.

THE DUDDON No known available directions, and no buoys, but this is one of the most attractive of estuaries, running up into the hills of the Lake District and forming the outlet for one of its quietest and loveliest valleys, Dunnerdale. It is a sandy estuary, and when the tide is high one can sail anywhere in a dinghy. The spire of Millom Church makes a good mark to help find the way into the channel as one crosses the mouth of the estuary from Walney Island.

Watch where you dry out at Haverigg. Immediately off the village, where many small boats are moored, steep-to gutters and hard patches riddle the mud-banks. Better go up onto the sandy bank by the shore itself. The only catch about this is its proximity to the caravan camp in the dunes nearby.

RAVENGLASS Excellent directions in the Morecambe Bay booklet. This lovely inlet is the meeting place of three Lake District rivers. One can walk up the valley to Scafell pike and all the finest English hills. At the entrance is quite a nasty bar, so that one cannot get in or out in fresh westerlies. There is also a gunnery range — firing spectacularly out to sea. There are bird reserves for nesting gulls in the dunes at the entrance. Follow the chartlet carefully and it is not difficult to find the way in. There is plenty of smooth sand with room to anchor. Enter with the flood, which runs quite fast, three hours before HW. At LW the whole inlet dries out completely.