Concerto is on the move

[mogmog2]

Enjoyed your accounts and some eye -opening passages along familiar coast (Eastbourne to Cowes against the tide from the Looe definitely a man on a mission!) .
WRT dolphins, I've sailed Shoreham to Littlehampton and the Solent all my life on and off and we never saw dolphins (or seals), now they're common between Brighton and the Looe and we've just seen loads crossing Lyme Bay, and seals are ten a penny nearly, round the Solent. Its almost as if banning TBT Antifouling and various other environmental legislation is having an effect

 

[Concerto]

Enjoyed your accounts and some eye -opening passages along familiar coast (Eastbourne to Cowes against the tide from the Looe definitely a man on a mission!) .
WRT dolphins, I've sailed Shoreham to Littlehampton and the Solent all my life on and off and we never saw dolphins (or seals), now they're common between Brighton and the Looe and we've just seen loads crossing Lyme Bay, and seals are ten a penny nearly, round the Solent. Its almost as if banning TBT Antifouling and various other environmental legislation is having an effect

Most years I have sailed between the Solent and the Medway, going back to the mid 1960's and I have never seen dolphins along this coast before. Back in the late 1960's the Thames estuary was an almost dead river due to pollution of many kinds and we knew the last commercial fisherman based in Queenborough. He finally moved to Scotland as he could not make a living working singlehanded on a 40ft fishing boat. During the late 1970's and into the 1980's you could find a few seals near the entrance to Crouch, but none further south. Today there is a massive number (60+) on the Margate Sands. Some even enter the Medway and occasionally go up to the lock at Allington which divides the salt water from the fresh. A couple of years ago one even entered the Chatham Marina basin and stayed for several days before he escaped back into the river.