After brunch in the Last Anchor at Ipswich marina, we locked out on free flow at 14-05, and anchored for the night near to the Trimley Retreat Bird Sanctuary. The anchor was raised at 09-10 the following morning, heading for the River Colne and Brightlingsea. The morning was grey overcast, with very little wind, and a bit misty but with the help of the tide we maintained 6+ kts whilst motoring. Approaching Brightlingsea the Colne bar tide gauge showed 2.7m, we passed close to the gauge and recorded a minimum depth of 2.8m. The helpful harbourmaster showed us to our berth on one of the island pontoons, and we were safely moored up by 13-10.
Unfortunately we had a problem with the memory card in the camera and have about 100 photograph files which know that they are .jpg files, and have the expected file size but are currently unreadable. The upshot of this is that we currently have no photographic record of this and the next few days. I will try to get the files recovered, and add photo's later if possible.
At Brightlingsea we were amused by the names of some of the harbour boats, which included 'The Colne Ranger' and 'Dracula'. The harbour ran a water taxi service from the pontoons and moorings to the town walk ashore pontoon, which we used a couple of times. There was also a foot ferry run by the harbour from the town pontoon to East Mersea Island, across the river, which we used on the Thursday and had a good walk around the SE of the island from the drop off point on Mersea Stone. After a second night on the pontoon we left to explore the River Colne.
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