Day 75-Sunday 31st July- Medway to the Swale

There has been a change to the plan. Joe does not get back from his holiday until 4th August. So I'll not go up to London, but will meet him somewhere on the south coast. Today I went ditch crawling.I wanted to go up the Swale to visit Faversham. The main reason is the Shepherd Neame brewery is there and that is one of my favourite ales. A long time ago I went on a very memorable trip around the brewery. It was during my industrial training year whilst I was at college. I remember a bunch of us trying to play football in the park after a session in the brewery.It is also another one of those nice little towns at the head of a muddy creek.

Faversham is at the head of the Faversham Creek off the River Swale, which is the waterway that separates the Isle of Sheppey from the rest of Kent. As the tide comes in it comes up the Swale from both ends.I had to time my trip so that I was going against the incoming tide as I was going down the Medway, but when I turned right into the Swale it would then  take me up to Faversham.

The terrain is fairly flat and featureless as the channel routes its way through the marshes. Its' where the old sail barges that don't get restored, and a few other boats, have their final resting places.

All was going to plan, but the lifting rail and road bridge at Kingsferry only opens on the hour on a Sunday and I just missed the midday opening. So this delayed my journey up Faversham creek. After going aground for the third time, I gave up and went alongside a boat in the Hollowshore boatyard.

Hollowshore is the name of the small area at the junction of the Favershsm and Oare Creeks. It has one ancient pub ( The Shipwright's Arms), a boatyard a boat club and one house. It is pretty remote and has only recently had electricity . Its one of the sites where thames barges were built.

The pub is said to have a ghost, reputed to be a barge skipper shipwrecked one stormy night out in the Swale, who managed to get ashore and stagger to the pub door, but could not make anybody hear, and was found dead in the morning.

They seem to offer cheap moorings in these parts.

This really is ooze country. I cycled into Faversham to see what it would have been like if I'd managed to get up the river.It really does become a trickle, but these big barges manage it.

The old town is full of listed buildings.It would be a good place to explore if I stay here for a day.

What I found a real odd mixture though, was the chic apartments and bistros being about 100m from house boat land.I felt uneasy about taking photos of the houseboats. I had a sense that they are a bit protective of their privacy and would see me as a snooper. It's a bit wilder than the comparable area in Woodbridge.

Back at the boat yard, I had a chat with Tony, who owns the boat I am moored alongside. He has a scaffolding business and lives on the boat part time. He only bought it a couple of weeks ago. He seems an interesting guy. We'll have a beer in the Shipwrights this evening.He said too many stories are about the rich and famous and there is not enough about the common man. There are so many instances where there are no names on old photos. So Iitook a photo of Tony. He has a point, my blogs have had a few names of people, but maybe not enough.

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Day 74- Saturday 30th July- By bike to Rochester and Upnor

Gillingham marina has to be the only place, other than the Caledonian canal, where they make it easy to empty a portaloo. So having got that out of the way I was ready to go, as it were.Firstly,I wanted to see what Rochester had to offer Then I wanted to see the castle at Upnor.

Rochester could be called Dickensville, given the number of references to him. He lived in a house called Gad's Hill in the town and he set many of his stories in the area.There was quite a lot of space devoted to him in the Guildhall museum.

Having mentioned the use of old ships for prisons yesterday, it was a coincidence to find a big exhibition devoted to the subject in the Guildhall. Magwitch, the convict in Great Expectations escaped from a Medway hulk prison ship. In 1814 there were 72,000 prisoners from the Napoleonic war held in old ships and, at that time, the new prison on Dartmoor. However the poor conditions resulted in other famous London prisons being  built, and the last prison ship went up in flames in Woolwich in 1857.

The quote in French from the time seemed very poignant and speaks of the conditions they must have suffered..

Despite these conditions, the prisoners had plenty of time to produce model boats from carved bone and boxes from straw.

The last thing I found interesting in the Guildhall were the references to Sir Cloudesly Shovell. I had come across references to him when diving in the Isles of Scilly.His boat the "Association" and the fleet he was leading was wrecked on the Scillies when they made a navigational error and believed they were somewhere in the English Chanel.It seems he was the local MP and a good local benefactor. It must have been a big loss to the town at the time, as well as being one of the biggest ship wreck events in the Scillies.

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Rochester has a cathedral and a Norman castle.The Cathedral was notable for ti being near a fabulous Catalpa tree, which was over 100 years old an in bloom.

Inside, it had an amazingly ornate organ that was being played beautifully.

There was wall painting dated about 1200 about the wheel of fortune, which seemed to be a pretty secular ubject matter,

...and there had been some serious settlement problems on the south wall, so that the pillars were well out of line. A case of the not-so-perpendicular style of architecture.

The other Norman building in the town is Rochester Castle. It would have had a commanding position next to the river and the river bridge.

Rochester has some good historic buildings and a vibrant town centre, with loads of coffee bars and restaurants.

Upnor castle is in the other side of the river. It started out as a gun battery to defend Chatham, then became a gun powder warehouse. It played an important part in bringing an end to the battle when the Dutch fleet sailed up the Medway in 1667 to set about the moored English fleet. A chain  used to be pulled taut across the river as a line of defence, but 3 Dutch ships broke through it.The Dutch fleet captured the "Royal Charles", did some serious damage to a lot of ships and then retreated when they took a bashing from the cannons at Upnor. It wasn't the English navy's finest hour, and a lot of scapegoating went on afterwards.

The castle is now used for civil weddings. It seems an unlikely place to have a wedding ceremony. It's a lovely historic building, but weddings and gunpowder!!..The guests sit on cushions on the barrels.

The internal surfaces have been adapted to reduce sparks. It has a wood block floor, lead on the banisters and copper on the windows. I don't know how you get sparks off a wooden hand rail, but must have been a big problem in the 17th century.

I was a bit confused by the references to the "baricado", which the Guildhall information said was in place on the 1633 map. There was no reference to this at Upnor Castle.The chain was elsewhere in the river at Gillingham. I should have thought the baricado would have been pretty effective if it had been in place.

Upnor is a small pretty little village. At first sight, one of the oldest looking places was actually built in 2004. It is currently for sale.

An old rudder made a good gate.

Back on Hylje, I actually got my sketch book and pastels out for the first time. I had a go at doing the pink hulled classic wooden boat "Shrimper" moored in front of me. I was not happy with the result. It looked more like a deep sea trawler than a fine little sailing boat.

Day 72- Friday 29th July- Chatham Docks

I spent the whole day at Chatham Docks. It was that good and there is so much to see.

It costs about £15 to get into the historic dockyard, but the ticket lasts for a year and you can go back as often as you want.The docks have been where major shipbuilding of British warships have taken place for over 600 years. The last one, a submarine, was built in the 60s. The Medway has also been a place where major parts of the fleet have been kept over the centuries.Whilst much of the area has been cleared as part of redevelopments, an area has been retained and reused as an historic maritime centre, together with some businesses.

My first stop was the " Big Space". This is a massive timber framed building, which at one stage had tar covered paper on its roof,before this was replaced by zinc. It houses all the big stuff, plus the RNLI exhibition.When I first saw it, I thought it was a contemporery addition to the other historic big sheds.

When I said that I was going to try and raise money for the RNLI and RSPB on this trip, one or two people commented on the wealth of the RNLI and that they have the very best, and the most expensive of equipment. Furthermore it is housed in some very impressive buildings.The implication was that the charity was doing alright and didn't need any more money. Frankly, I wondered if I'd chosen the wrong charities.Today changed all that for me and removed any doubts I may have had.

When you read about the sacrifices the lifeboatmen have made, and hear of the loss of their boats and their lives and you combine this with the testimonies of swimmers, fishermen, dog walkers, windsurfers and yachtsmen, then you realise what a fabulous and typically British institution this is. If they have the best of equipment, it is only so that it can be put to saving ordinary people. Furthermore, the lifeboatmen are putting their own lives on the line and they deserve to have the odds stacked on their side by having the best equipment at their disposal.

The last loss of a lifeboat seems to have been as  recently as 1962, but I'm sure there will have been the loss of lifeboat men's lives since then. So it is not just in the early days when there was true heroism and sacrifice.

I was incredibly moved by the exhibition, and I was touched by Winston Churchill's comments about the character that persists in people who risk everything to save others. This is in peacetime and where there is no financial reward. I will be campaigning ever harder for this organisation.

The next stop was much lighter emotionaly.It was the rope making exhibition. Rope making is an activity that has been going on for centuries. It still takes place in the longest brick built building in Europe. It is a quarter of a mile long with no intervening walls. It's an amazing space to look down.

The guy (Mr. Steve- to you folks please) who led the talk was a right character. He took on the no-nonsense persona of a 1850s shop foreman. He explained that there were 31 miles of rope used in the construction of HMS Victory when it was built at Chatham.He explained the origins of such phrases as "to swing a cat",and "to let the cat out of the bag", It reminds us of the maritime origins of so many of the things we say without realising it.

The next guided tour was of the cold war submarine, which was the last vessel to be built at Chatham. It had an electric motor and the batteries were recharged by a diesel engine when it could be near the surface to have access to a source of air. It was therefore silent in operation.It was in service until the late 90s

I reckon I've got more space inside Hylje than the captain had in his deluxe cabin.

The Gannet is one of those part steam, part sail,part iron, part wood boats that emerged at the time Brunel was designing the SS Britain. it saw a bit of active service but was used mostly to impress the natives and exercise a bit of diplomatic muscle.

It had been decommissioned and used as a static training ship before it was restored.This sort of ignoble alteration seems to have been the destiny of so many fine ships, many of which were used as floating prisons. At least this one has survived and had her dignity restored.

Under the floor of one of the buildings on the site they unearthed the timbers of what seems to have been a single ship. Archaeologically it is as significant as finding the Mary Rose.

In the big shed there was an interesting variant on the rudder.It was on a launch and it's moved by a small wheel. It is supposed to make steering when going backwards so much better.

There is so much more I could report, but there is just too much.Back on Hylje and in my strange post mooring it is good to feel connected through this trip to this heritage of sea faring.

However, I feel that I am spoilt by the luxury of being able to chose where I sail and when I go. So many who have defended our shores or, and here is another plug, have sought to save the lives of those who had no such choice, deserve our total respect and support.In the last 5 years the RNLI has saved 38,000 people. It is perhaps not so well known that they continued to operate in the 2 world wars. In the first one they saved 5,332 lives, and in the second one 6,376 lives. Also 19 lifeboats were involved in evacuating troops from Dunkirk.If this stirs you, then you know what to do. www.justgiving.com/stephen-munday/