Watching the tide - in Wells

20-57 pm: My view from the cockpit - I have spent hours watching the water here. I have not gone mad - I have rather found it fascinating because the tides behave quite differently here - and have a greater importance than they have in the other places I have sailed - mostly the North East of England and Scotland. I watch the tide come in - hard to convey in one picture. This one is taken about two hours after I expected the tide to come in - and here it has just turned and in half an hour the sand banks are covered, the pontoons float and high water activity begins, except that the flood is so strong that most boats can make no progress against it for a while. What drama.

The influx up the channel is accompanied (on the evening tide) by the local shell-fish fishing boats who feel their way up the channel with the tide.