All Washed Up

I have not studied the geology of the Wash except by rolling in it and looking at it. There are no hard bits, just sand and gravel. The boundary between land and sea is so soft and mobile that the sea has defined its limits by throwing up its own embankments. Even these are constantly breached so that there can be as much water behind the dunes as there is beyond. Even small streams flowing off the Norfolk hills wind their way along the back of the beach, probing the defences until they find a weak spot and escape to the sea. The result is a shifting maze of creeks and channels.

This is the largest estuary in England and it was created by the advancing ice of a series of glaciations. The chalk and clay that was previously here, and can still be found nearby, was pulverised and swept southwards but the harder, heavier flints which lay within the chalk were deposited as the ice withdrew. This explains the dominance of flints in the shingle banks and the large number of characteristic brick-and-flint cottages along the coast.

I like to imagine the last great glacier sitting in the Wash with its snout against the cliffs at Hunstanton. Gravel and silt-laden streams poured up the valleys of the larger rivers, reversing the flow until they ran out of power and formed lakes where they shed their burden of sand and flint. The gravel industry around St Ives, Huntingdon and Bedford was born from the Norfolk glacier that melted only 10,000 years ago.

The tide here rises and falls over 6 meters, yet the Wash is virtually flat. That 6 meter drop sends the sea so far away you can't see the edge of it from your beach-mat. The in-coming tide travels at walking pace on the flats but it spills much quicker up the creeks, filling them in minutes.

We were told to turn up early for our 5.45 p.m. boat trip to see the seals, so we spent the late afternoon at Morston Quay. The tide was out and the creeks were totally dry except for a large puddle where a family was engaged in crab-catching. They foolishly agreed to letting us join in and we soon had our gear out of the car.

We are crabbing fanatics. Our normal gear consists of a couple of hand-lines baited with bacon, a net and a clear plastic bucket. There are no hooks; the crabs hopefully just hold on to the bacon, which is tough enough not to be instantly shredded by our nippy friends. When you pull your crabs up to the surface you slip the net under them and shake them off the bacon, then drop them into your bucket. This time we had a new bit of kit; a circular drop-net. It's the same technique really but you tie your bacon onto the weighted net and just pull it up when you think you might have caught something. It works for prawns and crayfish too. We caught dozens of crabs but Dan's favourite bit was letting them go. He would tip over the bucket and watch the crabs race back to the water.

Suddenly the crowds arrived on the hard-standing and orderly queues began to form at half a dozen landing stages. Crews sat in their boats, chatting and smoking, but nothing happened. The sky was blue, the mud was grey and the only sounds were murmuring families, singing sky-larks and seabirds' cries: No engines or flapping sails. No water.

The boats were just sitting in the thick, ousey mud and there was no sign of the incoming tide until 5.40. Then the creek simply filled up. A family careered up the creek in an inflatable kayak, borne on rapids that were not there minutes before. Our boats started to jostle with their rickety stanchions and ropes had to be adjusted as engines coughed to life. Then it was All Aboard for a trip into Blakeney Harbour and then west to Blakeney Point.

It's over three miles from the base of the point to it's tip, and it is still growing. The National Trust manages the site from the old Lifeboat Station in summer when there are thousands of seabirds nesting. Seals breed here in winter but hang out on the sand all year round.

We all really enjoyed watching the seals, but Dan got a bit over-excited and threw my waterproof binoculars over the side of the boat. If you see a seal wearing binoculars, they will almost certainly be mine.

If you want pictures, go to Photobucket