Netherlands Trip - Bradwell      14th July:

    We awoke to another hot steamy day. I cooked a high cholesterol heart stopper for breakfast while Rex chatted up an old dear on an adjacent boat.
    Once sorted, we expertly left our berth and enjoyed a superb sail up past Bradwell to Osea Island, reaching a dizzy speed of 7.7 knots at one point. We passed the island, turned around and sailed back to Bradwell for our final overnight stay.

    A member of the marina staff gave us a hand with our bow line. Once berthed, Rex muttered we were perfectly capable of getting ourselves sorted out. Rex is not a fan of outside "help" upsetting our well-oiled boat-handling routines. Almost immediately I heard a shout from another yacht arriving. I sprinted up to take a bow line. The harassed woman on board was glad for my help.
    Within a few minutes yet another boat arrived. Both Rex and I offered help to berth that boat. A local chap who started to help soon had enough and muttered, "I'm off," and he left sharply. The couple on the vessel seemed ever so confused about securing themselves in the berth, could not get their rope lengths sorted and were hindered by their craft being badly maintained. Some cleats were hanging on by just a single loose screw, and equally loose stanchions were being used for securing ropes to. I could now see why the local chap had done a quick stage left.
    Once the couple were secured to their own level of satisfaction, yet another yacht arrived. Two elderly men, who were "in charge" of this vessel, totally screwed up their implantation into their berth. Their fenders on one side were too high, and they had no fenders out at all on the other side. The couple from the previous boat we had assisted seemed to know the two elderly chaps, so we left them all to it.
    A while later I got chatting with the couple who owned the "shambles" boat. They were moored almost behind us, so it was difficult to avoid them. They were part of a twelve boat group that had sailed up from Chatham. Ten of the boats had aimed for Brightlingsea. Their boat, and that of the two elderly men, had decided to come to Bradwell instead; both vessels needed mains power for medical reason, and Brightlingsea could not offer that.
    I mentioned that we had spent the previous evening at Brightlingsea, and had been surprised that the water-taxi stopped at 18:45. The woman was horrified at that news. We observed later that more members of their club had migrated from Brightlingsea to Bradwell.
    In the evening we returned to our favourite watering hole at Bradwell, the Green Man. A large group of locals were gathered around the bar, seemingly determined not make way for us to order at the bar or pass by; well it is North Essex. When we did manage to get a table and order some food, we met a couple who sat at an adjacent table. To me they seemed slightly familiar. Towards the end of the evening, after Rex and I had been chatting about sailing exploit up the Crouch, the chap offered us some advice. With a big smile, he pointed out we had met once before at the White Hart at Burnham-on-Crouch, where the couple kept their boat. What a small world.
    The evening was cooling rapidly. We strolled around the boat yard, then gazed out across the Blackwater to a gorgeous sunset, with huge mud banks below us, left by the retreating tide. Back on board, Rex sat in the cockpit with his coat on. Swallows gracefully flew amongst the boats in the marina, a wonderful, peaceful setting.
    Then the peace was shattered by noisy, boisterous kids on a training course 50m away. C'est la vie.