Mud Shoes.

As reported in an earlier post from a few months back, I made a return to that spot off Mersea Island where I have been finding Roman pottery. So far I have discovered 3 complete roman pots there as well as lots of broken pieces. Well the spot is about half a mile off shore and can only be reached at low tides. Well last time I was there I almost got into trouble by getting stuck in the mud. Now that kind of thing happens time to time and when I was a younger man I took it in my stride but now I am 60 years old its a tad more difficult to deal with. Its dangerous out there on the mud and even though I have a lifetime of experience larking off mersea, I still get into trouble. Well instead of not going, I decided it was time to change tack and make myself some mud shoes. (pictured above) Well I went back to visit my mum on the island recently and took my new shoes to try them out. They worked really well and gave me a lot of confidence to go most places. A tweak here and there to reduce the suction but on the whole a success. The only other thing I learned was how much my leg muscles hurt after using something new like these. I found muscles hurting for 24 hours afterwards that I never knew I had. 

Sadly I never found any more pottery, or anything else but the day was bright sunshine and most enjoyable just being out there and trudging around. The terrain where the potter was found had changed dramatically. Where there were gulleys in the mud where the pots were found, those gulleys had filled back in again. Maybe next year the gulleys will return for a while. Who knows! But I was surprised to see such change in such a short period of time since I was last there. The only man made things I saw were large pieces of aluminium from an aircraft that must have blown up overhead from during world war2's battle of Britain.  Interesting but not really my kind of thing. 

Anyway, all the pots have now been conserved and given to the mersea museum. The rules with such things is to inform the antiquities finds scheme of the items recovered-this I did with colchester before conservation but never got a reply. The pots were then immersed in deionised water for 3 months and this water was changed periodically about 4 times. The pots were then dried out slowly in a cool dark place before taking them to the mersea museum last week.

Above is an image of a Mersea Island sand bank. There are a few of these off mersea and these are safe places for anyone to walk on when the tide is right out. It was on these sand banks that I cut my teeth as a nipper inadvertently getting myself into mud larking and finding things. From that humble beginning  I found diving and thus to shipwreck hunting. It all started on these sand banks. I have always loved it out there-and whenever I came home with an old bottle or clay pipe or bullets from the war my mum used to say things like-"thats lovely dear but dont bring the muddy thing in here" None ever understood my childhood fascination with finding things- but they do now tho!!