The Medway Estuary 27th December 2009

The Medway has plenty of character, with the Medway towns such as Gillingham, Chatham and Rochester having a distinquished naval history. It is associated quintessentially with the novelist Charles Dickens, who appreciated the murky atmosphere with marshlands, mud and winter darkness. Likewise these features provided the setting for my journey.

I launched at Commodores Hard, which stretches out thinly into the estuary, with  soft mud at the end. Just off the hard was an old sailing boat, the same design as Ellen McArthur had used to circumnavigate the UK, looking somewhat forlorn.

The navigation buoys caught the light as I rowed on, with the large Napoleonic forts that protect the upper Medway in the distance.

The sun sank behind cloud, reappearing as an orange sunset reflecting off the water, ruffled by a light wind coming from the east. Large clouds of steam billowed out from power station chimneys, flattened in my direction by the east wind.  As I rowed steadily I could see the huge cranes on the jetty to the north and the marshes away to the south.

As I rowed onwards through a series of long reaches, wavelets built up with tide against wind and spray came over the bow with water draining out through the stern. Past Stangate Creek I could see high up above me Deadman’s Island, with stakes lining the entrance to Shepherd's Creek.  It is around this area that people were incarcerated in ships, either as convicts or in quarantine. Those that died were buried on Deadman's Island. The light was fading as I skirted round the island and up the Swale to Queenborough.

After a good supper it was dark as I set out for my return. I realised then the folly of being out in the Medway in the dark with no navigation lights and I look around nervously, keeping very close to Deadman’s island. I passed very close by a small fishing vessel  and I am sure he didn’t see me in the dark.

A previous night sail in a larger boat in the same estuary meant I knew the buoyage and was able to keep  on course. I glanced round and looked for the flashing of the buoys, checking their location on my map to stay orientated. I put on my wetsuit gloves, the temperature dropping well below zero, feathering my oars with stiff fingers.

Every so often I stood up to relieve a deadening feeling of my legs because of sitting for too long. I rowed for about five miles without seeing another moving boat, listening to oyster catchers as they circled over the mud flats. The tide had risen again and the hard at Gillingham
was half covered.