Definitely Venus. Corroborated by none other than Sylvia in the Hospice Shop who heard them talking about it on Radio Kent the other day. What made me think that it must be Venus was that it has been so prominent in the night sky for months now, with the extraordinary triple conjunction with the crescent moon and Jupiter back on the 1st December.
They were the three brightest objects in the night sky and they all came together to form the amazing Smiley face as viewed from the other side of the world, here seen over Melbourne:
Twelve hours later, the earth had rotated such that they were visible from Dover and I tried to get a photo with the Western Heights in the frame. By this time, the moon had moved twelve hours further along its orbit of the earth, at a diagonal to a line joining Venus and Jupiter and the other side of said line, so even a Grumpy face was not to be had. Venus was correctly placed to one side of the downturned mouth of the crescent moon but Jupiter was way away to the top right.
Had to puzzle over this for a bit before I twigged it, including standing on my head to get the view from Aussie. Didn't matter anyway as the composition disappeared behind the Western Heights whilst I was still looking out a tripod. The fuzzy photo below shows the comparative brilliance of Venus against the crescent moon, with the rest of the disc of the moon illuminated in earthshine.
Following that, Venus has remained very bright ever since and I tried to get a photo one night at the end of February. Viewed from mid channel up near the MPC buoy, the lights of the Port of Dover were at the foot with the red vertical lights on the Hougham TV mast behind them pointing upwards to the moon directly above and Venus immediately above that. Would have been a good photo.
As expected however, there was no chance whatsover of achieving a decent photo from a moving, vibrating ship but the fuzzy result below shows the comparative brilliance of the celestial objects. The ship had moved on towards the South Goodwin by this time and the angle had changed so the lights of the Hougham TV mast are on the left with the orange lights of the port stretching to the right.