Brownwater or Blackwater ?

[moonshine]

Hi there,

We left Pyefleet 10:00 last thursday enroute to Fambridge, the tide was flooding. Passing Eagle and all the way to the Wallet Spitway bouy the water was completely full of suspended brown mud, much worse than normal east coast water colour. The mud seemed to be in patches and looked churned up.

I wondered whether some dredging or spoil dumping had been in progress ? The coasters Bert/Mark Prior had been up and down the Colne on both days/nights we spent in Pyefleet, are these vessels capable of dumping, or are their journeys coincidental ?

Any suggestions.

Moonshine

 

[MoodySabre]

Coincidental I think. I've often seen 'clouds of mud' in the water even in fairly deep water, well 10m is deep around here. No idea what causes it - particularly noticeable when it is calm.

 

[philiphurst]

The density of the sediment increases near springs and reduces as we move towards neaps.

I think it's that simple but stand to be corrected.

 

[Cobra]

The Bert Prior and Mark Prior are just bog standard sand and gravel barges...nothing flash...loaded through the hatches and then discharged through the same hatches!

A number of years ago there used to be a regular 'grey' water tanker that went from the Hythe Haven sewage works out into the Swin/Wallet areas twice a day...from memory she was the 'Errwood'...she would sail from Colchester Hythe at top of tide and would usually drop her pipes somewhere around No 13. There would be a trail of seagulls and a somewhat unpleasant pong following her out to sea. She would usually be back into the Colne by low water and nudging the new flood back to her berth ready to repeat the process on the next tide. If I recall correctly sewage disposal was for quite a while the biggest export from Colchester!!

 

[LittleSister]

the water was completely full of suspended brown mud, much worse than normal east coast water colour. The mud seemed to be in patches and looked churned up.

Much better than normal East Coast water colour, surely? If we'd wanted boring old crystal clear blue water we would have gone to the West Country, Caribbean. . . . ;-)

 

[pioneer]

About the same time moonshine left Pyefleet on the Thursday I was also leaving on the Wednesday in company with Freebee en route to Fambridge, via a night in the Roach. didn't particularly notice anything about the water, but then I've only just completed season 1 in this part of the East Coast and our passage was via the Ray Sand (least depth seen 2.2m the day before and 2.4 on the Wednesday.

Tx to Roger for his excellent chart - followed the 0100E line all the way until reaching deeper water of the Blackwater and then turned towards Colne Pt - reverse course for the way back.