Secret Waters: The Walton Backwaters in Essex

To create a sense of intrigue, the children's author Arthur Ransome renamed an estuary in Essex, the Walton Backwaters, the 'Secret Water.' His book, by the same name, is about the 'Swallows,' a group of sibling children, being marooned by their father on an island in the middle of the estuary, given the task of mapping out the different islands and waterways. 

The story starts with their father, a busy naval commander, taking them there from further up the coast, depositing them with a dinghy and a tent. The book was written over 80 years ago and the fictional map the children produced can still be used as approximate navigational guide.

I decided to launch at Harwich and follow their route into the estuary. As I rowed away from Harwich one of the large container ships that docks in Harwich port moved in. 

To get into the estuary a yacht has to locate a narrow channel across hard sandbanks. The buoyage is hard to see, and from a distance the flat coastline is marked only by the Naze Tower just visible to the naked eye in the distance.

I lined up my course and kept going into the estuary,  eventually passing a group of yachts that were coming out through the narrow entrance channel and stemming the tide. I had the luxury of drawing only six inches, so could keep well clear of them.

I passed Stone point, a sandy spit that marks the entrance to the Walton Backwaters. Boats stop here to spend the day and perhaps picnic and swim on a secluded beach.

The next group of boats were the dinghy sailors, racing around the expanded waters of the estuary.

As I passed them, they seemed very relaxed for racing dinghies and would smile and wave, the East Coast a friendly place to sail.

The dinghies gave way to quieter sailing waters the flatness gave me a sense of the atmosphere of old.

Notes on the voyage: I is possible to launch off the beach at the Harwich seafront. I timed things a few hours before Dover high tide when the tide was sweeping down the North Sea and into the Walton Backwaters. This meant I was in the estuary as it filled with water and could take the reverse tide back to Harwich.