So there you are approaching the Copperas from the West...

Neaps.
keep the Copperas to port and the Reculver to Starboard. ?
Yeap. Note the NTM in week 6 (http://www.crossingthethamesestuary.com/page9.html). But I recall (from memory) LW Neaps will still have 2m of water over the shallow point twix Copperas and Reculver. I asked the UKHO is the shape of the channel there had altered but they confirmed it was still as before just that shallow point getting a little more shallower. So don't get close to the Reculver, follow the contours of the Channel in the image I added to the NtM (just scroll down to week 6).
 
My first trip through Copperas, I made the mistake of heading straight to the Copperas buoy and turning when I got there. The buoy sits on top of a spit. I didn't touch, but didn't have much water under the keel. Coming from the Medway I normally now head to enter the Channel about 1/4 mile further SW.
 
Some hard earned experience - the W end of Margate Hook stretches much further west than the Copperas buoy (not sure if the new charts show this)
Trinity House really need to move Reculver buoy a cable north onto the end of the spit as well, but I suspect that within a few years it'll be gone as a channel, as Margate Hook spreads south and west and cuts the Copperas entrance off.
We've stopped using it in the big boat unless on a rising mid tide, as round Margate Sand isn't THAT much longer from the Medway
 
Did you see the NtoM in week 6 this year. The official position from a 2017 survey was the shape of the contours remained the same as at that year but had reduced depths in certain spots as shown in the NtoM.
 
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