Thames side Essex: Sea Reach, Southend-on-Sea, 2017

Unabashed praise for Southend Council, not something they hear too often I’d guess. In this recording the Waverley is leaving Southend Pier at about 2 o’clock, heading out to the Red Sand Towers with its compliment of Southend passengers. It is travelling along Sea Reach, the longest reach of The Thames which runs roughly east west from Stanford Le Hope to a couple of miles east of Shoeburyness on the Essex shore and today has the beat of paddles drifting across it again.