Island of dreams

Modern intrusions vie with the trill of oystercatchers close to Dave's dream home

- Dave Selby

There's nothing like that feeling of contentment from waking with the sun after a night of dreamy slumber in a peaceful anchorage and emerging to welcome the wonders of the world as if it was the first day of creation.

And this was nothing like that. Though Snipe had rocked as gently as a cradle that would soothe a teething baby with croup, my fitful dreams had been filled with terror, maths, malevolent, violent rage and a lust for money -£25 million, to be precise, with enough left over to buy a torpedo boat. Even for me, this is not normal.

The maths is perfectly routine for any night spent at anchor, with the digits of tide-height calculations clattering round my cranium. The terror too, because if by chance you don't go aground or get dashed ashore, you must have dragged into a shipping lane or army firing range. This is all the more disconcerting as the only time Snipe approaches hull-speed or overtakes anything is when I'm displaying the anchor ball.

The night before I'd anchored off Osea Island on the River Blackwater, but when I awoke, the island was nowhere to be seen -until I turned round and realised that Snipe had swung on the tide in the night. Such is the heightened state of anxiety anchoring induces in me.