A tide of autumnal gold rises, in the canopies of the broad leaf trees, at the head of dockyard basin number one.
The waning sun warms Upnor Castle's walls, as days shorten. Autumn silently ebbs away, like the still waters of the river. Summer a fond memory.
Soon, bright berries adorn winter-bare branches.
A globe trotting, steel hulled, ocean wanderer hunkers down, in her sheltered mud berth, under the lee of Nor Marsh.
Around her, gimlet eyed Redshank pace the glistening mudflats.
Down at the old bargee's slip, a thin chill winter breeze blows in from the North Sea. . . .
. . . . stripping the trees of their cloak of leaves. Revealing the silvery skeletal tracery of their intricate limbs. The better to bear the onslaught of winter's gales.
It is low tide now. The bed of Rainham Creek too is laid bare. Riven by dark shadowed rivulets - from which an unseen curlew calls, as it forages. The ethereal song echoing across the marsh, magnifying its stillness.
Silently, the decaying molars of a jetty, complete with a rusting barge hulk, are inexorably devoured by the marsh.
In Barlett Creek, the tide has turned. The flood begun. A finger of water, bright and blue as Breton summer day, extends amid the subdued winter landscape. A portent of cruises to come.
