Line in the Sand is a proposition to use the shallow trawling machinery of the fishing boats to write on the sand bar between Canvey Point and Southend Pier underlying the flight path to many of London's Airports.

In 2012 Matsuko my partner and Lani my son barbecued with the Benfleet Yacht club on the Ray sands, just off Southend-on-sea in the Thames Estuary the closest wilderness zone to London. We had been invited by Richard Lenox who likes to night sail up toward the Arctic on the Norwegian coast above Bergen in his Cornish Crabber.(a small sail boat) Rich can safely be thought of as a maniac, a particular species of sailor. When back in Benfleet the next town up the river from Leigh-on-sea, Rich would take the ebb tide down Leigh Creek and arrive to spend the day with us and to visit his old mate John Dickens who worked the Cambria the last Sailing barge without an engine in the 1960's.

He invited us out and so we met the Benfleet group by going out in our 14ft Gunter Riged Tideway, a local Leigh boat built by Walkers. Walking around the sand bar between Hadleigh Ray and and Southend Pier we saw giant rings on the sand and the barbecues proceeding were constantly interrupted buy planes taking off and landing at London, Southend Airport. Looking upwards into the sky you could see other Aircraft snaking their way up the Thames toward the City Airport, Heathrow and Stansted. This was at the hight of the controversy about the a third runway for London Heathrow Airport and BoJo(Boris Johnson, Mayor of London) had been putting forward plans to fill in the Thames across from Leigh and create a new hub airport. As the debate heated up BoJo repeated that no ones lives at the Thames Estuary and we should grateful for Boris Island.