Sea mud - does it really stink

[dylanwinter]

that is my experience

Having sailed on the east coast for about 45 years I have plentiful experience of the gloop. It most certainly does smell - of the sea. That is true whether you are covered in it from head to toe or simply surrounded by it.

The idea of "smelly mud" is one of those received notions that are repeated uncritically and, sometimes, dogmatically as "something everybody knows." I once challenged one such dogmatic believer to close her eyes, sniff as much as she liked and tell me which of my two hands was east coast muddy and which, simply, wet. She was surprised to find she couldn't do it. And yet, when she could see the mud, she was quite sure she could smell it. Such is the power of suggestion.

that is my experience

there does seem to be a degree of received wisdom or even auto-suggestion - it is sticky mud and must therefore be smelly

however......

perhaps you litotes, me and your lady victim have a poor sense of smell

I for one could not say that anywhere away from the sewage outfalls it smells at all bad

but others say it does so perhaps I am olfactorily blind

Dylan

 

[Juan Twothree]

The mud at Harty Ferry, on The Swale in Kent, has a smell all of its own.

 

[Habebty]

Grew up at Hardway and I can personally state that Portsmouth Harbour mud stinks more than Hamford Water or any other East Coast mud by a factor of 10..... oh yes sireeee !!!

Last summer I took the tender and went beachcombing and mudlarking off Priddys Hard for clay pipes and other Napoleonic garbage (found some interesting bits) just like I did as a kid. I could still smell Pompey mud on the dinghy several weeks later as I hosed it down in Ipswich. My oily trousers still stink of mud - would recognise the smell anywhere.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Strange I used to think, she was a very short lady.??

Strange? No, all grannies were short. They pre-dated free school milk.

 

[Alfie168]

I do remember large numbers of Johnnies floating around the Orwell
D

Known in the North West as 'Mersey Cod'...

I wonder if losing ones sense of smell is age related as mine was always very keen, and in the last five years it has gone completely to pot, and my taste buds along with it. I've been checked out and they can't find anything wrong...just age..and I'm 58..today asitappens.

Tim

 

[dylanwinter]

that is certainly true

Known in the North West as 'Mersey Cod'...

I wonder if losing ones sense of smell is age related as mine was always very keen, and in the last five years it has gone completely to pot, and my taste buds along with it. I've been checked out and they can't find anything wrong...just age..and I'm 58..today asitappens.

Tim

for most of us that is true

when I was a producer on the Food programme one of our wine experts had really lost their sense of taste

could not really tell the difference between a sweet and a dry white wine

but they were great talkers and knew a massive amount about wine - we knew that we could never do blind tastings with them

so - enjoy your bread, mature chedder and branston and forget about the fois gras

 

[Litotes]

that is my experience

there does seem to be a degree of received wisdom or even auto-suggestion - it is sticky mud and must therefore be smelly

however......

perhaps you litotes, me and your lady victim have a poor sense of smell
Dylan

I don't know about you, but I have a very keen sense of smell, as did the guest in question. The smell of the mud simply isn't an issue for anyone who knows the east coast - because it doesn't smell.

I don't doubt that mud can sometimes smell in certain places and for certain reasons, but ordinary mud, as found on anchors raised from the gloop of the Blackwater, the Colne, the Backwaters etc. simply smells of salt water. I'm not in the habit of anchoring beside sewage outfalls, but even they shouldn't really smell of sewage by the time their contents get dumped.

I'm old enough to remember the s**t barges that used to ply the Colne in the bad old days, taking raw sewage out to dump in the outer estuary. Now, you could smell them alright....

I have sailed a lot from the west country in former times and in many countries of Europe from the Baltic to Spain. I've never come across a smelly seabed. The classic "smell of the sea" tends to come from rotting seaweed (and a very fine smell it is too) but most of us can also recognise a distinctive character about the air when nearing the sea - probably partly smell and partly suggestion. Oddly enough, I don't get that near the east coast, though, unless there is exposed foreshore with weed. Sometimes you might think you were way inland, until you glimpse a smack or barge sail making its stately progress, apparently across a farmer's field. You mostly don't get those on ponds or boating lakes.

Edited to add - old enough for the s**t barges, but young enough still to be able to tell a gamay from a pinot noir from a cabernet sauvignon from a cabernet franc from a syrah....and so on.........just by smelling them.

 

[Twister_Ken]

I've been checked out and they can't find anything wrong...just age..and I'm 58..today asitappens.

Tim

Well then, happy birthday. Have a virtual pint.

 

[Alfie168]

Thankyou....thing is I can still taste bad beer, but can't appreciate good beer like I used to. A good malt still works though..just

Tim

 

[Scotty_Tradewind]

Known in the North West as 'Mersey Cod'...

I wonder if losing ones sense of smell is age related as mine was always very keen, and in the last five years it has gone completely to pot, and my taste buds along with it. I've been checked out and they can't find anything wrong...just age..and I'm 58..today asitappens.

Tim

swmbo gradually lost her sense of smell over the last decade and most of her taste too. She had no other major illness or symptoms at all in her adult life.
We had looked on the internet to see if loosing ones smell is common, and it seemed to indicate that this was not uncommon, yet more likely in women in later life life than men.

Boxing day she had a seizure. Two weeks ago she had a 2" benign meningioma tumour removed from behind her forehead.
Today we have just walked a couple of miles in the sunshine along the Thames at Caversham, Reading.
Her sense of smell will never return so the surgeon advised but with the wonderful treatment in the NHS she is well on the way to recovery. The admin' in the NHS is another story....dreadful!

 

[dylanwinter]

so was the loss of s sense of taste related to the other problems

swmbo gradually lost her sense of smell over the last decade and most of her taste too. She had no other major illness or symptoms at all in her adult life.
We had looked on the internet to see if loosing ones smell is common, and it seemed to indicate that this was not uncommon, yet more likely in women in later life life than men.

Boxing day she had a seizure. Two weeks ago she had a 2" benign meningioma tumour removed from behind her forehead.
Today we have just walked a couple of miles in the sunshine along the Thames at Caversham, Reading.
Her sense of smell will never return so the surgeon advised but with the wonderful treatment in the NHS she is well on the way to recovery. The admin' in the NHS is another story....dreadful!

so is the loss of your sense of taste a symptom of something ahead - my mother lost her sense of taste completely and had a stroke - but there was a 25 year gap

cheerful subject

Dylan

 

[Scotty_Tradewind]

so is the loss of your sense of taste a symptom of something ahead - my mother lost her sense of taste completely and had a stroke - but there was a 25 year gap

cheerful subject

Dylan

Who knows..... perhaps if we all had a full body scan each year it would throw up a lot of preventable problems.????

 

[Jamesuk]

Wootton Creek mud stinks.

 

[DaveS]

Who knows..... perhaps if we all had a full body scan each year it would throw up a lot of preventable problems.????

Absolutely. People who work in nuclear power stations live longer than average because of the regular medical check ups.