Shore-side lights, from a distant weekday terra firma world, sparkle across our anchorage. Twilight calm settles like a sigh of relief. Stargazer reclines on mercury smooth, sunset burnished waters.
There was a scramble to cross the lock cill whilst we still had enough tide. An opportunity seized when a Friday afternoon meeting finished early and the prospect of an evening sail beckoned irresistibly.
Then we were scudding free into a world half water half land. Threading our way into its shimmering, tawny, paludarium heart.
We alight for the night....
....amid the wading geese. Dusk gathers and the bubbling, ethereal, joyous trill of curlew hangs, like a spell, amid the stillness. A rushing tide laps its soft lullaby against the mudflat ooze. The timeless chorus of the marsh.
Overnight a companion slips silently into the anchorage beside Stargazer.
The morning tide slowly rises, lifting us above the sheltering sedge, to reveal the promise of a new day. Today the call of the Suffolk river anchorages has replaced the call of the curlew. A message to heed when, winds willing, Stargazer sets sail for her autumn cruise in four short days' time.
