2024_10_31_14_04_21

We are in the Deepwater Channel in Felixstowe Docks on the River Orwell. There are five container ships alongside and one more coming. There is a commercial vessel with a crane for lifting buoys. Buoys mark the deep water for ships. Dredging is done to maintain the deep water for the containers. It can be challenging to work here, but it's great on calm days. Ed, this is your everyday working environment. Where are we? So we're in the Deepwater Channel in Felixstowe Docks on the River Orwell and we're surrounded by Port of Felixstowe and all of the ships and shipping containers on one side and then we've got Shotley the other side and Harwich as well. How many container ships can we see at the moment? So we've got five alongside and there's actually one more on its way in the river as well. And I can see some kind of vessel crossing between Harwich and Felixstowe, what's that? So that is a commercial vessel that is, that's a commercial vessel that is, it's got a crane on the front for lifting up buoys. So they're just working, lifting up, putting up buoys. Buoys are like the signal posts on the river aren't they? Yes, so they're like floating structures that mark the deep water in the middle or wherever it is. Is that important? Incredibly important for the ships, slightly less important for smaller boats like us. So this deep water is dredged every year by Harwich Haven Authority to keep it deep enough for these huge containers. It's kind of like maintaining roads. Yes, it's constant. It's a constant battle to keep it from silting up for them. Whereas we can stay outside of that because our boats are much smaller than these ships. So what's it like to work in this environment every day? There are the good days and the bad days. On a day like today where it's lovely and still and not particularly cold it's fantastic and in the summer it's really lovely. When you're out here in the snow it's not quite as fun. So you get to, just to describe, where it's a flat calm.