Crosshouse put-in (Southampton)

The launch sits on the Woolston bank of the tidal Itchen, about a mile from the river mouth and immediately upstream of the Itchen Bridge. Downstream, the river opens past Ocean Village Marina and Southampton's docks towards Southampton Water. Upstream it passes Shamrock Quay, Saxon Wharf and Kemps Quay before Northam Bridge, where the river narrows and dries a short distance further on.

The one landmark on this stretch is the Grade II listed Supermarine Slipway, a concrete slab-and-beam ramp built in 1936-37 to the design of the architect Oliver Bernard for launching Supermarine's seaplanes and flying boats. It is the only structure to survive from the Supermarine Aviation Works, where R J Mitchell's Spitfire was developed, after the works was destroyed in bombing raids in September 1940.

This tidal reach lies within the Solent and Southampton Water Special Protection Area and Ramsar site, designated for its internationally important estuary bird populations. A short way upstream on the same bank, Chessel Bay Local Nature Reserve is the last undeveloped stretch of shoreline on the lower Itchen; its mudflats, saltmarsh and shingle hold curlew, oystercatcher and dunlin year-round, with brent geese arriving in winter, alongside salmon, otter and seals.