Raysand Channel - a popular (but unintentional) picnic site

The author thought that he could see a short cut through the sand banks. One of the the other boats in our three boat fleet followed. It did not work, the tide went out before we got through. The third boat which took the correct route stopped and the crew walked back accross the sands to join us. At least we had lots of cups of tea and enjoyed the sunshine.

But I am not the first and not the last HSC helm to make this mistake, three years later here we are again, once more stuck firm on the sands by the Raysand channel. Again it was a warm sunney day and after one boat stuck fast the fleet returned to investigate and this time we spent the afternoon swimming and building sand castles as well as making cups of tea.

The picture below, taken during our summer cruise 2003,  shows how it looks when the water returns. The yellow bouy marks the Raysand channel, you need to pass close to this bouy to keep in the deepest water. Coming from the north the shallowest part seems to be the half mile approaching the bouy, if you can reach the bouy without grounding you should be able to carry on into the deep water of the Crouch.