The morning tide turns before dawn, in the stillness of the night.
Today we are "sittin' on the dock of bay, watchin' the tide roll away" (in the words of Otis Redding). Re rigging the topping lift, which wasn't quite to my liking on yesterday's sail downriver; and persuading the new wind instrument to show me apparent, as well as true, windspeed.
Skylarks, high above the salt marsh, pour cascades of silvery notes onto a shoreline alive with, intently feeding, wading birds: Boldly marked Avocet pace the shallows.
Godwit too, still in their winter plumage. Their jaunty red summer feathers still to brighten their breasts.
Steadily the warmth of sun disperses a fine morning mist. The wind turbines begin to rotate in a breeze which is broadly out of the north east. Sometimes a little more northerly. Sometimes a little more easterly. Affected, no doubt by the serpentine banks of the Medway.
Tomorrow, the first day of British Summer Time, the sun should be up and the wind filling in, by the time that the tide turns. We will decide whether to head north, for the Orwell, or east, to Ramsgate once Stargazer is off Garrison Point. According to which course the wind direction, out in the London River, favours.
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