It is high water Harwich, on a big spring tide. The waters lap at the feet of afternoon drinkers on the, once more, crowded terrace of the Butt and Oyster. Boiling black clouds tumble across a forbidding sky. The past weeks of, often strong, north to north east winds have driven a storm surge down the North Sea. Adding height to today's tide.
Spotlight beams of sunlight lance down through gaps in the racing clouds. Highlighting the pink walls of Alma Cottage. Next door neighbour to the village pub.
The grey hulled Cambria has moved round from the scrubbing posts, where she lay yesterday, workmen busy on her hull, to lie companionably astern of, the wine red hulled, Melissa.
I am out on the new dinghy pontoon. Drawn by the vantage point it gives . I snap photographs, when the sun shines . Stand, taking in the view, when the clouds obscure it . During one lull, in photography, I fall into conversation with a couple dressed in canvas smocks and seaboots . They are about to board their dinghy. Excited to be preparing their historic smack for the Bank Holiday races.
Time flies by . And the waters have risen still further. The landward end of the pontoon, I discover, as I attempt to walk ashore, is submerged to knee height, for a distance of around ten metres. I am marooned. Part of the explanation lies with the storm surge. More tellingly, I now remember, high water at Pin Mill is closer to that of Ipswich than to that of Harwich. Half an hour later. It now truly is high water. I shall have to wait for the ebb to release me. I settle down to enjoy the view.
An oarsman, returning from a day on his boat, spots me. "Are you stuck?" he calls. He rows over to perform a socially distanced rescue . He steps out of his boat, onto the shingle beach, takes hold of the long painter, in one hand, and pushes her back out to me, with the other. The wind carries the empty dinghy neatly to my feet. In I step, to be towed ashore, with a well timed heave on the painter.
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