It’s that horrible time of year where the sunshine becomes something of a rarity and storms roll in. With many storms on the Broads comes the phenomenon of ‘tidal locking’. Essentially, high tides and storm surges, coupled often with heavy rain result in water being unable to drain sufficiently between tides. Flooding and salt-surges are often the outcome. Last weekend storm Ciarán left it’s mark with flooding across the Broads with many reporting the highest water levels they had ever seen. Of course this left me hugely concerned for ‘White Lady’ although I generally have a habit of leaving reasonable slack in my mooring lines and deploying springs when I leave the boat.

Fortunately my lines were set just about right and I visited the boat to find no damage. I was also expecting my ageing canopy to have given up the ghost but that too remained intact. Hopefully the weather calms down a bit so I can settle into some winter cruising.

It does make me think that a poor regime of dredging and siltation may play a substantial role in these flooding events which I suspect we’re going to have to get used to in the future.