Quality mud

[DownWest]

As a small sprog, looking into the Malden barge wallows, I was told by some wizened fisherman (prob around 50) that if I fell in, I would never be seen again. And after pushing the dinghy out to some dubious water halfway to our mooring, I would at least give the Blackwater some votes.
Flanders and Swann anybody?

 

[dylanwinter]

agree

As a small sprog, looking into the Malden barge wallows, I was told by some wizened fisherman (prob around 50) that if I fell in, I would never be seen again. And after pushing the dinghy out to some dubious water halfway to our mooring, I would at least give the Blackwater some votes.
Flanders and Swann anybody?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QvZ1Zp2uco

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeLwJXhtT30

d

 

[PetiteFleur]

The mud in the Crouch is pretty tenacious - many years ago I anchored before the laid moorings and admittedly it blew a bit overnight but no way could I lift the anchor the next day. Had to wait for the tide to rise with the chain straight up and down. I was getting really worried as the stem started to disappear but with me on the stern it did pop free. Boat was a 20' Vivacity with a Genuine CQR.

 

[LittleSister]

Well if quantity is a criterion then East Coast wins hands down. We've anchored many times in Newtown Creek, and sailed and canoed in Keyhaven. They are both but mud puddles. On the East Coast we usually get more mud than either of those have got in total attached to our anchor and spattered over our decks each time we anchor, and there's hundreds of square miles of the stuff.

The other thing about East Coast mud is its all-encompassing-ness. The Bristol Channel has quite a bit of mud, but interspersed with rocks and proper sea-water. On the East Coast mud is all there is! The land is just slightly thicker mud, and the rivers are just slightly thinner mud. Indeed philosophers have argued for milennia whether it's actually possible to chart meaningful soundings on the East Coast, when there's no clear distinction, just a gradual continuum between the muddy stuff that flows and the muddy stuff that stays put. Visiting yachtsmen are often caught out by believing the figures on the charts will tell them how deep the 'water' is, only to find there's more bottom than they reckoned on, or its moved off somewhere else for no obvious reason.

Why do you think there are so few settlements right on the coast or the riverbanks around the East Coast? They've all sunk into the mud. Even the wading birds get stuck in the stuff!

 

[ccscott49]

Reading Dylan's post re shallow water has prompted me to ask where the worst mud in the UK is located.

I think that worst can be judged by several qualities, smell (anything less than a dead bear's bum is not in this league), quantity (we're talking acres or square miles here), viscosity (if the mud can't retain your welly or at least clog your anchor with unshiftable gloop then it's not worth talking about) and finally depth (could you lose a bike, a car or a lorry without noticing)

I have two nominations to start with:

1. Newtown Creek and surrounds, that mud could have fought off an invading navy single handed.

2. My home port of Keyhaven, which has managed to take a couple of wellies off me and stunk my tenders out when an oar merely kissed the surface of the stuff. On a nice warm day in summer when the true extent of mud becomes clear with the wind in the right direction you could be mistaken for thinking that you were in the middle of some time warped WW1 gas attack.

Anywhere on the east coast, "theres mud, then theres east coast mud", bloody miles and miles of stinking, festering gloopy mud!