Ghosts of a river's life

Kent Life discovers an an other-worldliness about the marshes, creeks, and saltings of the lower reaches of the river Medway

- Robert Weatherburn

The lower reaches of the River Medway border a strange land; one that only reluctantly bares the bones of the land and seascape that once was.

It is a place of many faces and quickly changing moods; where the damp and swirling river mists creep, insidiously, across the saltings and mud-flats and wreathe in almost tangible shrouds the countless skeletons of sad and rotting hulks.

The sun can shine brilliantly and bathe the saltings in a golden shimmering light, yet even then the ghostly sounds of the estuary still speak of desolation and memories held only vaguely in the consciousness.

The marshes and saltings of the lower reaches of the Medway are all that is left of a long-forgotten world. My weekend there was aboard Tova, a 1901 vintage gaff cutter, and she was very much at home there in the company of Whitstable and East Coast fishing and oyster smacks and stately Thames Barges.

Instinct seemed to tell her where we wanted and needed to go; slipping away from the mainstream of river traffic (which included the comings and goings of mega tankers that towered above us) and escaping to take us slowly through the creeks and inlets of the marshes, and into curiously lonely and isolated anchorages as if delighting in showing us around.

Stangate Creek bites deeply into the marshland of Saltpan Reach, that stretch of the Medway between the Isle of Grain and Brunswick Island, and it is a favourite retreat for those afloat who love the other-worldliness of its atmosphere and the fragile beauty of its plants and wildlife.