High Water High Pressure

 The planets had all aligned on a December Saturday morning, brief high pressure promised clear blue sky, HW was a very respectable 10.15AM and the pile of lumber and building materials being stored in the garage for the garden room had just about cleared, so I could pull out Gato Negro without too much difficulty and go for the first row in months.

Arriving bang on a predicted 4.8m HW the saltings which cut off Badam Creek from the rest of the river so I was able to row straight across, in the distance is the shed formally used by Salterns Boatbuilders which according to Greg the water would come under the doors on such tides

 

This is an old raft used by the navy working alongside warships for hull painting and maintenance, made up of massive oak timbers to prevent the work party getting squeezed between ship and the dock wall. You can gauge the size of those shackles.

 For years it was stranded on the foreshore at Bursledon pool, but floated off during extreme HW in 2007 going down stream on the ebbing tide presumably without doing too much damage to moored boats and ending up at Badam, even this morning's tide wasn't enough to float it off.

Gato pulled up at the cafe in Hamble, another foot or so of tide and I would have be able to row past the take away window.