Wallasea Island salt marshes

On a freezing grey February day last week I went to the Essex tidal salt marshes of Wallasea Island. I spent many years of my life here, looking for stuff to do while my parents either sailed,scrubbed off anti foul or were in the 'Wardroom' with friends. 

The tidal inlets were as muddy and smelly as I remember them - I used to scan them for hours looking for crabs or jetsam from France. Random things always make their way in land after a high tide and I loved to scour the high water mark for evidence of people from far off lands (but usually just as far as Southend on sea;)

The large metal and wooden blocks in some of the photographs are the old pontoons that our boats used to be moored to. Believe it or not they actually float and got here the same way as the lighter jetsam has. 

One gave me a nail through the foot, several others gave me hours of splinter torment and I caught jellyfish after jellyfish in my fishing net while balancing on the un submerged part of our mooring block.

These ones have been here for as long as I can remember, almost definitely washed up after the great Hurricane of 1987.