When it’s grey and blustery you don’t want to take your tent down and face the day. Wouldn’t it be easier just to lie a bit longer in your nice warm sleeping bag? I had to make the effort. I’d driven all this way to launch at Burnham Yacht Harbour and explore the River Crouch and even with a force 4 on the nose it was still possible. I lay listening and above the tapping of the halliards I could hear a skylark singing over the saltings.

It was not far from low water when I beat my reefed Torch dinghy out of the entrance at about eleven o’clock in the morning. Nothing was moving on the river except the flurries of white caps which raced towards me. I had soon tacked clear of the last of the moorings and was alone on the deserted, grey river. Saturday, in late June; where was everybody? The wind fluctuated. It was forecast to be force 5, but it rarely reached that. When it did, it was the limit of what I could manage in my 13 foot boat. The waves struck the vertical side of the bow and drove spray aboard. I have a spray cover which extends the foredeck and I was pleased to see it returning substantial quantities of water back into the river. At times I wondered if I would be able to hold this weight of wind, but then its strength would ease and I would be reasonably comfortable for a while, except for the waves.

The tide had turned favourable and it lifted the water in short, sharp shapes that the boat would tackle in groups of three. Lift to the first; cut through the second and slap a shower out of the third. I tried to avoid the outside of the bends where the water ran the roughest. It was a big river. Broad enough for a yacht to comfortably tack up. I think that I saw three of them actually out for a sail in the same sense that I was, during the whole day. At North Fambridge half a dozen yachts were preparing for their regular Saturday race, but I couldn’t stay to watch because the wind was strong again and bilge water had by this time accumulated below the floorboards. It was time to remove it before its weight became significant.

I hove to and blessed my helm impeder, as promoted in the DCA Bulletin. I have had a number of devices for steadying the tiller, but this particular model is wonderfully efficient. I adjusted the sail balance slightly and the boat sat quietly whilst I deployed the pipes of my pump and cleared the bilges. It’s comforting to have a powerful diaphragm pump.

At the confluence with Clementsgreen Creek I wondered which way the river ran, so I quickly consulted with my little chart and turned left towards Brandy Hole where the moored boats started once more. I tacked through the craft, staying in the obvious fairway channel, for I was early on the tide and the river was clearly shallow at the edges. The rural nature of the banks gave way to bungalows and houses. A fete was being held in a field. People walked by the water’s edge. Pontoons and piers, roads and cars, marked my passage through Hullbridge, but now the water was shallowing rapidly.

At the very moment that I first questioned how much further I could go, the stopper knot came out of my port jib sheet as I tacked. I tacked again and found that the knot had also gone from my starboard sheet. Incredible coincidence, especially as both knotted sheets had been linked to each other with a reef knot to aid access to them whilst single-handing. Three knots simultaneously disappeared. I took this as an omen to turn and run out of there. No sooner had I turned at 2.30 than the sun came out and the day was transformed. Confirmation of my decision! Now I reaped the reward of that long beat. The strong breeze took me skimming back over the incoming water like a speedboat. Terminal velocity was achieved for my little boat as I sat back and soaked up the unexpected warmth and enjoyed my sandwiches.

On the run back downstream I exploited my commanding wind to appreciate the scenery and poke into each and every creek to see what I could find. The inhabitants of Clementsgreen Creek were sheep. Stowe Creek had a marina at the end but you would never have known, unless you had spotted the tops of the masts over the saltings. The creek also had a crow that was harassing a cormorant for its meal. The seabird headed for the water making grunting noises, the crow had to alight on the shore. There was a stand-off and a verbal battle which ended when the cormorant submerged, leaving the crow to ponder on its inability to float. I planned to cut through Bridgemarsh Creek if possible, to make a circumnavigation of the island, but less than 50 metres in, my centreboard was saying that I was still too early on the tide. I returned to the river and my glorious speedboat run. I let her sail herself a bit in Easter Reach whilst I did some housekeeping sponging out the last dregs of water from the bottom.

Looking ahead I spotted the distinctive mainsail of Dave Jennings’s Highlander pottering near the entrance to Althorne Creek. I took the helm again to catch him up and looking back upstream I saw the unmistakable yellow deck of Peter Small’s Wayfarer coming down behind me. Where had he come from? He had told me that he was going to the River Roach. By cheating the tide at the river’s edge down Cliff Reach I joined forces with Dave Jennings and we headed for the marina. Just outside the entrance was John Perry manoeuvring under oars and Peter Baxter’s Drascombe was secured to a mooring. Almost immediately David McClellan hove into sight in his West Wight Potter and who should be waiting in the marina but Ted Jones who had just concluded another notable sea journey from Walton Backwaters in his diminutive Sunspot.

For someone who had just spent the day silently and alone with wind, water and wildlife it was an explosion of activity, contact and conversation. A group of craft linked up to occupy a double marina space and there was much to discuss at the evening meal that night. It had been a wonderful day’s sail alone on the Crouch. What kind of day might it have been, had not the skylark ascending called me from my bed?