On the last Thursday Liz Baker very generously forewent the trip to Bembridge in order to escort the more timorous of us up the creeks and round the harbour.

We had a peaceful lunch anchored at Lord's Pool watched by a shore party who were all prepared to fend off an invasion from three small boats. They did not know that it was the very last thing we wanted, to be caught on a falling tide.

We spent the last of the tide on Hayling Island sands being baked to a crisp. With the slack we sailed up towards Emsworth. Tracy and Andrew McLaughlin turned back in their Kingfisher 14 and Margaret and David Spensley in the Wanderer out-paced us making up channel, while Liz and I turned off to look at the seals.

It was now about five-thirty and we meandered between high mud banks. First one seal would toboggan down the slope, leaving the pretty indentations of its flippers, then others followed. When it became apparent that they would not give us a chance to approach, it occurred to us that if we regarded them slyly, without direct eye contact, averting our heads, they seemed totally content and accepting of our presence.

Our steady progress up the creek was suddenly and unceremoniously interrupted by running aground. Well, you cannot necessarily mind where you are going when getting silently excited by the privilege of being so close to wild creatures.

Strange, the tide was still running out, though we knew it was rising in the main channel. What with the oars out to push off, the plate up, the rudder up and the muddle of trying to get off you might have expected the seals to have disappeared.

Not a bit of it. They were delighted with this hilarious human drama. They all took to the water and swam round and round us. If they could have spoken it would have been words of mirth and scorn at our predicament.

Of course we left them in the end. Interesting – there was one seal of a different sort: the kind you see off Holy Island.

Down the main channel to Hayling Island, round the corner of sand banks tacking to the Cobnor creek, we arrived back on the hard to welcome hands-on help up the slip to the berth. It was nearly eight o'clock.

A brilliant day and a lovely end to a happy week.