Next morning we were due to set out early and spend the whole day on the boat, exploring the channels further south, towards the Bay of Bengal.
As we emerged from our cottage we could see that the camp, and river, were shrouded in thick fog; which fortunately cleared pretty quickly.
Our boat travelled slowly, probably no more than 4kmph, about the same speed as a narrowboat on one of UKs canals. The main reason for this was to minimise erosion of the banks, which we could see were crumbling away in places.
Our 10 hours on the river meant that we would see both high and low tides, so we had high hopes of some good sightings and as we cruised we imagined tigers emerging from the mangrove forest and coming to the river to drink.
Apparently the most likely time to see tigers is at low tide, which is also the best time for birdlife.
Well, there was precious little birdlife on the muddy banks and the only mammals we saw were a couple of spotted deer, some rhesus macaque and a few capped langurs.
It quickly became clear that the odds were stacked heavily against us; the chances of our being in the right spot when a tiger emerged from the endless expanse of mangroves were very slim indeed.