SOUTH DEEP, THE SWALE

Dick Durham mulls the algorithm of a pint ashore while anchored in this East Coast creek

- Dick Durham

South Deep is as near perfect as an anchorage gets. To the north you have a marshy islet, home to breeding pairs of wildfowl, to the south a lonely sea wall where the only sign of life is a handful of dozy sheep cropping the sweeter grass on the seaward side.

Westward lies the drying end of the Ray: never deep enough to produce seas to worry about even in a stonking sou-wester. And to the east is the all-tide entry, but even that is hooded by distant Sheppey, whose slopes at Harty Ferry act as a spoiler for Mr East Wind.

As for the holding on this part of the Swale... well you’ll find out how good that is when you retrieve your anchor. It will be black with the estuary ooze which planted you to the seabed overnight.