The Wash Standing on the quay of the English port of King's Lynn many years ago, I was fascinated by the seething tidal stream with a tide range of seven metres, causing the fishing boats to dry completely at the quayside. Last summer, during our cruise along the English east coast to the Wash, where King's Lynn is the main fishing port, we could experience this wonder of nature at first hand. In her pilot for the English east coast the Dutch author Anje Valk describes the bay in the North Sea off East Anglia as unknown and unloved. She calls the Wash 'a kind of super Shallow', where advanced navigational skills are a necessity. We couldn't agree more: navigating here was more of a challenge than what we faced in the Norwegian fjords, the German Bight, the Gulf of Biscay, or in between the Swedish skerries and the Frisian Islands. Nevertheless, we enjoyed every minute of it, and we loved the peace and quiet in this remarkable area that hardly exists for pleasure craft.