Whitstable to Faversham and back 18th September 2010

A previous trip from Whitstable had to be abandoned because it was too windy. I was able to launch to try out PicoMicroYacht in a rougher sea, but ensuring the wind was onshore and the tide flooding safely to the West. I rowed about half a mile up the coast and the trip was uneventful, apart from it being a little bouncy launching off the slipway.

On  a second occasion, the weather was mild and there was to be a fine evening. It took longer than I thought to drive to Whitstable and I arrived about six O’Clock to get ready. Originally I thought I would leave the boat at Faversham, drive to Whitstable with the car and trailer, take the train back to Faversham and go by boat to meet the car. But I couldn’t find an open launching slip sufficiently close to the station in Faversham to make it work, so gave up and drove to Whitstable to do a there and back trip.

Fortunately the wind had dropped and gone round to the north and despite the dramatic skies the weather was calm and the sea kindly.

I rigged PicoMicroyacht and there were  people around enjoying watching the sun setting towards the Isle of Sheppey. 

As I launched the sun set on the horizon, with beautiful prussian blues in the sea and sky

I set off heading across the Whitstable flats for the Sand End buoy in the far distance. The wind and sea was on the beam and I was moving along slowly as the light was fading. Initially I used back marker posts from the Whitstable harbour to keep my course.

There was a good view of the Whitstable sea front an also looking to the left Seasalter in the distance.

I got going and with the tide my speed increased to over 4 miles per hour. At about high tide there was no danger of disturbing the Oyster beds. I was now well over the base of the Pollard Spit and the light was fading fast.

Whistable Oyster beds. Whitstable is famous for oysters, with farming going back to Roman times. Oyster farming declined drastically after the war due to a combination of pollution, underinvestment and freak weather, but recently it has improved. However, Oyster stock has just declined again as written up in the telegraph in July ‘Visitors to Whitstable had a high old time at last weekend's oyster festival but local fishermen were in stormier mood, fearing the extinction of Pacific oyster stocks. The catch was down by 8,000 and John Bayes, who runs Seasalter Shellfish, an oyster farming company, and whose report of high death rates among his stocks to the Fish Health Inspectorate led to the herpes scare, fears "total wipe-out". He has been forced to cease oyster activity, "a massive blow" after recent investment which was to spark an export boom selling "millions of oysters". Recently,  oyster industry was worth £30 million and produced 14,000 tonnes of the things, 13,000 of which are the now threatened Pacific variety.’

Fortunately, there was a good moon, which came out behind the clouds and I knew there would be enough visibility As it got dark I settled into a rhythm making good progress, I could now see behind me the entrance to the Swale and to my left the lit buildings in front of the Graveney marshes. 

There was then a ‘thwack’ like bump followed by further ‘thwacks.’ A fish had jumped into the boat and was slapping around. Eventually I stopped and used sculling blade to scoop the fish back into the water.  

The moon guided me along and was using the lights in the distance.

It was now getting much darker now, with a red tinge on the horizon, the sky and sea an inky black colour

I was now was using the buoy lights to navigate, the Sands End buoy at the entrance to the Swale flashing green every five seconds and the Horse Sands outside Faversham every ten seconds. Soon I was in the Swale, with the sea much calmer and less wind. I had to be careful not to run into the Sands End buoy as I rowed along at over 4 miles per hour, my back turned. Very soon I was outside Faversham pausing to call home at just before 9 pm and eating my cream crackers. It was quite dark and difficult to see the entrance. The far side of the entrance loomed up in the dark quite suddenly with large black shape on the shore.

The camera battery failed and I decided to skirt along the shore on the way back, firstly past the Cleve marshes, hearing the waves hitting the shore line, then by the Graveney marshes with a succession of lit beach houses and finally Seasalter.

I found out later that the ‘Highball’ bouncing bomb, developed by Barnes Wallis was tested off the Seasalter beach, This bomb was to be used to attack shipping, the priority being the German battleship Tirpitz. Before release they were spun backwards at 700 to 900 revolutions per minute and were designed to be dropped from a maximum altitude of 60 ft (20 m) at an airspeed of 360 mph (600 km/h). A de Havilland Mosquito dropped the highball bomb prototype off Sea Salter – an image taken from a motion picture displayed in the Spitfire and Hurricane Memorial Museum, Manston in Kent.

The wind had dropped and I had the centreplate up so as not risk hitting the bottom and disturbing the Oyster beds. On the way I grazed past a spit just off the shore, just seeing a bank with the waves heaping up on the seaward part of the spit.

I arrive back at Whistable sooner than expected and was on the slipway at 10.45 pm, pleased with my voyage.