So eight years ago I signed up for a life sentence when I married Maria in a “quiet” ceremony at Great Braxted. It was definitely not a quiet party and we had a fantastic time. Despite having already been together for over six years at the time, you learn a lot about someone after you marry them….. and if I was asked to do it all again? Absolutely, in a heartbeat! I’m not saying it’s all sweetness and light, but we don’t have crossed words for long and who doesn’t enjoy the making up 😉 . We are very comfortable in each other’s company and have a lot of fun as just the two of us. I think that has to be a pre-requisite when contemplating living on a boat and especially if you are thinking of going off cruising.

So it’s our wedding anniversary and we have decided to take a couple of days off and let the stress wash off of us by taking the boat on a mini tour of the East Coast for some of the best summer weather we have had in years.

But where to go? We shortlisted some options: Ramsgate, with its lovely Thai, French and Italian restaurants; Queenborough, on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, Sharfleet Creek for a quiet anchorage; Osea Island, where we would get the chance to see some friends we hadn’t seen for a while or Pyefleet, where we could take the rib into Mersey Island for seafood. We fancied a couple of destinations so it was a case of decisions, decisions. The weather can normally help shape these decisions but with very light easterly winds and scorching hot temperatures expected, not even the weather could help us choose.

In the end, we decided to start our journey with a trip down to Osea Island and Maldon. It would give Maria a chance to try out her paddle board again and, fresh from her experience in Antigua, maybe even pump up the two man Kayak that she had bought a few years ago. From there we can take a view of whether we stay in the Blackwater and go to West Mersea or venture South to Kent.

Any trip is only as good as the preparation and a key element of that is provisioning. So with the requisite number of bottles of Prosecco on board, we were ready to go! Maria does get other stuff in too but also spends ages having another fishing lesson at the bait shop and buying bait. We’re going to be watching fishing rods catching nothing again! We have also gone to the lock up to get the kayak and the buoyancy aids, she seems to be serious about this…which of course means I am expecting hilarious videos. The final new addition is a snorkelling face mask, which is my anniversary present from the old romantic, and that means Maria plans to send me under the boat in the “crystal-clear” waters of the Blackwater :). It had better be warm!

Anyway, it’s Thursday evening, with a glorious weekend of weather on its way, and I am off to get a haircut while Maria readies Mariadz. An hour later we are ready to go and have decided to pick up a mooring ball opposite Levington despite our tribulations last time. In preparation, Maria has bought two more floating boat hooks and also replaced the shaft of the one that sinks. She deliberately didn’t buy the hook for that one. I suspect a lack of trust there, she thinks I will lose it again. The shaft also fits her fishing net and I think she wants to keep it like that. So now I have to store three new boat hooks in addition to the one I still have. Our friends Mike and Sue on FraZaz, a Jeanneau 45 on our pontoon, came up with a solution for this that I hadn’t seen before by slotting a boat hook in the bottom of the boom.  This is really neat and the boat hook is easily accessible. With the size of our boom, the hook is well away from any lines so we are trying this for a while.

There is barely any wind as we drift down river having quickly negotiated the lock. We are nearing our destination at Levington at about 8:30pm and approach the buoy against the quite strong tide, we are roughly directly between high and low tide when the river flows fastest. Later when we told our “friend” Amanda, she asked how many boat hooks we had gone through attempting to pick up the buoy….perish the thought. Despite a bit of a stutter where I decided to drop the buoy and got us repositioned better, we pick up the buoy fine. Quite lucky actually, as an American single handed boat expertly picks up the next buoy.  THAT could have been even more embarrassing than having your friends witness you messing it all up and then writing about it! Just before 9pm we’re settled nicely, but of course it wouldn’t be Mariadz if something unusual didn’t happen. I used one of the new boat hooks which was extendable with a locking mechanism. You can guess that having extended it, I couldn’t get the thing back together again! In the end I gave up for the evening, I will address that another time. That will test the length of my boom!

The evening is relaxed and short because we have decided that despite Friday being a work day we will travel to Osea Island.  That means that although the tides are not perfect, we will leave before dawn at 4am (ish) so that we can arrive at Osea before 10am and get a full day’s work in.

He the time we are heading down river it is nearing 4:30 but we are on our way on a still and beautiful morning.  The views when you sail at this time are stunning and even going through a slowly waking Felixstowe are fantastic as the sun starts to rise. We’re out and Maria is happy already knowing that despite a last day of work she is away from it all and sampling the cruising life.  The complete lack of wind makes the sea very still but does mean that we have to motor all the way, especially as we will be punishing a tide of over one knot the whole way.  This doesn’t sound too bad but when you consider that sailboats may go about 6 knots through the water, that is a difference in speed of 5 knots against 7 knots with the tide. For a 35 mile journey that is the difference between a five hour passage and a seven hour passage! It’s not as bad for a planing motorboat doing 20+ knots but explains why the tides are so important for sail.

As we leave Harwich behind us, there is a breath of wind but of course it is right on the nose. This is an unusual trip for us in that we see relatively few other boats as we travel down the Wallet towards West Mersea. That doesn’t stop me getting the camera out and snapping them all.  My normal rule is sails up if you want a picture but I make an exception if you have fenders out at sea….

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Normally when the weather is not so good we find that we see few other boats. Maria often remarking that we are the only mugs out in this. Today is just early on a week day I suspect.

We have taken the inside route on the Wallet which is a little shallower but cuts some time off the journey but it does mean you are close enough to shore to see the towns. Maria is a little concerned because we normally stay in safer, deeper water but being vigilant and keeping a eye on the route means this is safe enough.

I have my first work call at 10am and I am keen for us to have arrived and be settled in good time for this. We are making good time but our arrival is slipping from 9:30 towards 10am and after arriving at Osea I still have to drop the anchor and go through a long routine before I can get on the call.

We arrive at Osea and select where we will anchor, there are very few boats there so we have a good choice. One bilge keel is even up on the beach and a little later we see him working on the stern gear.  We can’t do this unfortunately, with our fin keel we would lay on our side and I would panic about us reflecting.

Maria is convinced we are in our normal spot but I am equally convinced we are slightly up river. Still there is lots of water as we drop anchor and put out thirty metres of chain to make sure we are secure all weekend, no matter what the weather does.  All done and with ten minutes to spare but I make a mental note to make sure I clear the weed off the anchor buoy before we leave, we don’t want a repeat of our fun and games last time.

Maria settles down for work in the cockpit as I am down below. Unfortunately our jobs require quite a few phone and Skype calls so we can’t work too close together without disturbing each other. Still Maria’s office looks good. We’re both very busy so there is not much opportunity to enjoy the surroundings but we both know that between 4pm and 5pm, the weekend will start! As we work though, the Thames Barges are starting to arrive, we hadn’t realised that there is another Barge race this weekend which actually starts at Osea Island. It means we are even luckier that we arrived early because we expect this anchorage to be very busy later and at least we are in position.

We have also noticed that the wind has built during the day. When we left Levington there was nothing, even when we anchored there was little wind but now it is blowing over twenty knots so I am glad we have ample chain down and a good Anchor alarm app on the iPad that shows us how we dance around our anchor.

It seems a long day but soon enough work is finished and it is time to get ready for the weekend.  Maria wants to get all of the toys out… so we start by pumping up the paddle board and two man kayak.

This takes longer than you would expect since we don’t read the instructions and have to let it down in various places to pump it up correctly.  Maria also has her fishing rod out and within minutes has caught her first baby fish! The hook is easily retrieved and the little fish is returned to the drink.  Then within minutes she has another, larger fish on the hook.  What is going on? I haven’t even got a bucket or net ready yet.  This is definitely a size you could eat, so such a shame we are not allowed to land sea-bass at the moment….. assuming it was a sea bass of course….you know what our fish recognition abilities are like!

The rib is down and it’s time to get it started.  We have recently topped up the fuel in all three tanks, one on the boat and two spares just in case.  I turn the ignition on the engine that always fires up first time to be greeted by the persistent whirring of the starter and little else. Hmmm, Maria asks me to check the fuel pipe is connected properly and I cast her a withering “don’t be ridiculous” look. Under the seat the fuel pipe is only partially connected so let’s sort that out and pump some fuel through manually. Retry still nothing. Much fiddling and looking at stuff I don’t really understand too well – a four cyclinder fuel injection outboard.  Let’s try some other stuff. Recheck the fuel line, repump the fuel….still nothing.  Now at this stage Maria mentions that shouldn’t the kill chord be attached to something.  D’oh. Quickly pop that in, and pump some more fuel in, it starts and purrs like Clyde eating prawns! Clearly that extra bit of fuel was what was required.  The toys are now ready for fun and games tomorrow and Maria is pulling in fish like a pro.

Part of the reason for coming to Osea, apart from the always glorious weather we experience, is to see our friends Sarah and Russ from Maldon who we have invited over for dinner. We were missing an ingredient which Maria has asked them to bring along and Maria decides we should get in the rib and meet them half way, pick up what we need so that she can get dinner fully on before they arrive. Maria does have a history of SAS style boarding of ships under sail but it seems she just intends to plunder this one for cream.  We get in the rib and having no idea when they left Maldon, head down river in search of their yacht.  We get a few miles towards heybridge and find them, having previously investigated several boats that “could”be them.  At least we didn’t miss them. They aren’t far behind us but then have to anchor themselves but I think our change of position and the fact they wanted to be reasonably close has put them off.  We understand why they want to be close based on their last visit when the 50 metres to their boat took them fifteen minutes and a few miles as they went via Bradwell :).  The problem is that they seem to be dragging as one minute they are 25 metres away and the next I am grabbing our roving fender just in case.  They eventually decide to anchor closer to shore but I think it was all our fault.

The evening is great, wonderful food, some alcohol, lots of music.  It’s getting to the end of the night and I notice that the batteries are down at 70% of available power. That’s not really where I like it to be prior to bedtime and so I decide to run the genie for a while to top them up.  This works fine for a while but then there is a clunk and the generator stops.  Russ, who is an engineer, and I go down below to investigate.  The engine room is hot so it appears that we have a problem with the water flow.  Before checking the impeller we decide to check the through hull.  The input for the generator has a filter.  After closing the through hull, it takes a few tools and a lot of effort to release the cap on the filter.  In normal circumstances, we would be greeted by a fountain of water when we opened the through hull.  So once again we have been struck by the curse of the Blackwater weed. Much prodding with a coat hanger later we are starting to see water but not enough but after a bit more hammering away we are getting a good flow so close the seacock and reseal the filter. Quick(ish) mop up and we’re ready to get the flow of water going again and test that we have cured the problem.  After ten minutes running we can confirm that the temperature is stable so let’s not take any more risks since the batteries are ok now.  We can go up and celebrate our success with a few drinks, maybe some port – oh dear, this is going to be a hard weekend.

It’s quite a late night by the time we get to bed. However, we are woken at 9am by Maria’s friend Liesl, who has popped down from Brightlingsea to come and see us. Having circled the boat several times they eventually phone us to stir us from our pit.  Eventually we get out to be greeted by a bright sunny day, made even brighter by our hungover eyes, with no wind. It’s a fleeting visit but then we notice that the Thames Barges have started to gather on the mirror-like water next to Osea Island. This should be an interesting race with no wind, in fact we heard at least one boat broke out the oars and started rowing their large barge! A little later the wind picks up but the start is on a glass like surface.

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We never get bored of watching the barges race and we see plenty of familiar boats that had raced just the other weekend in the Orwell.  We also don’t have too many boats in the way blocking pictures and with the reflection in the water, there are some pictures I really like.

It’s almost time to play with the toys but not until we have had an unhealthy breakfast.  As we look out conditions are perfect for beginners’ paddle boarding.  You can see how still it is from the assortment of watercraft that are rafted up together.  It will be up to us to destroy the tranquillity then!

First up is the paddle board.  Maria has explained how difficult it is to stay on your feet and there is a current running so whoever goes on it will need to be able to paddle.  Sarah is the first brave soul.  She mounts the board from the swim platform and stays on her knees for a while getting used to it.  After a little while she decides to rise to her feet.  Now you will recall that this was the stage that Maria felt she cracked it, just to end up falling forward over the board into the water.  Sarah has her own unique take on this, in that she gets to her feet and then drops to her knees without falling in!  Paddleboarding is clearly something where a little practice goes a long way because she seems to get the hang of it after a short time.  Although like all hard skills, the paddleboard does fight back and pitch her into the water. However, the photographs do not lie, and she is paddling away having fun.  Having seen Sarah’s success, the fear factor has gone and the rest of us are queueing up….first Russ.  Now it is safe to say that Russ has many talents but it is equally fair to say that paddleboarding is not, and on this showing is unlikely to ever be, one of them.  He is really struggling to get up on the board and when he does it pitches him off sideways like a particularly effective bucking bronco.  He later claims that he was checking the underside of the board for marine growth for us – what a gentleman he is!  Suffice to say that this is the best picture I have of Russ paddleboarding…..  Of course the fear is now back.  Of the people I know, the shorter, slimmer young ladies (Amanda and Sarah) have cracked it and everyone else (Mark, Maria and Russ)  have really struggled.  It could be that they are all a little top heavy 😉 Anyway, last up, Adam.  The initial mounting (is that the right term for paddleboarding?) seems ok, it is reasonably stable and I start to paddle off on my knees to get a feel for it.  I haven’t gone very far when I am reminded by my audience that the trick is to get to your feet – and I was thinking it was so easy.  By the time I have got up off my knees, I look back at Mariadz and she is forty metres away as I drift backwards on the board.  The board felt very stable when I was on my knees but now I am standing on it, it seems to be a bit wobbly.  My knees are going like a scared character in Scooby Do.  Early in 2017, Maria and I tried surfing in Australia with our (my step) daughter Amie.  It was hard work at 50+ years of age but I was able to get up onto my feet…..for about a second and a half.  Well I have smashed that record on the paddleboard but it has been a close run thing.  I am still standing but drifting back because I haven’t had the bottle to start moving around to use the paddle to propel me forward.  The first few tentative strokes seem to work and then I start to get a little bit of confidence which deserts me completely after I nearly fall off.  I am concentrating so much I don’t notice if I have got any closer to Mariadz and then I look up and I am twenty metres away.  They could now see the fear in my face so look relaxed and confident as I keep paddling having got into a bit of a rhythm.  I am only ten metres away now and I am desperately reciting to myself you are not getting wet, you are going to step (nonchalantly) onto the swim platform.  I get close, there is a slight wobble, don’t try and jump! Steady, and then I am back on Mariadz.  Unfortunately, nonchalance is rather overpowered by relief but I didn’t get my hair wet – my mum would have been so proud J.

I may have discussed previously that Maria is not competitive, and doesn’t race when we are sailing, but…. none shall pass! And none shall do better on the paddleboard so she decides to have a turn.  I suspect she must have been practicing when I have not been around because she has definitely got it and is actually enjoying herself.

Kayaking, especially after our recent experience of this in Antigua, holds no fears and so Russ and I go for a wander around the anchorage in kayak.  The only complexity with a two man kayak is that the rowing needs to be in sync or your oars clash.  This works well as long as the one in the back keeps the rhythm of the one in front and the one in front doesn’t decide to dip the same oar in the water a couple of times…..ay, Russ!  We have a good time with it though even trying our best Hawaii-5-0 back to the boat.  This is good timing for the girls to jump in to the kayak and for Russ, who will not be beaten by a paddleboard, to give it one more shot.  They are all off having fun and racing back although Russ has decided that the most stable position on your knees is the limit of his ambition for the day – well sort that out next time we see him!  A quick blast on the rib makes him happier though.

It’s a roasting hot day and the cats have retreated to their own cool spots occasionally popping out to see what we are up to before going back to sleep.

But they aren’t going near the water. It can’t be a day for just watersports though.  It is the football world cup and with great team spirit, England have become more than the sum of the parts and have reached a quarter final.  We set up the portable TV on deck and get ready to watch the game al fresco.  Some other friends, Kelton and Nicole, who own a motor boat, have been invited and may pop over for the second half – not football fans but willing to sample the atmosphere.

The game is easy to watch as England beat Sweden a lot more comfortably than we expected.  However, by this stage we have had a few drinks and so every boat that passes means we are calling out the score.  The irony being they probably are not interested or they would have been watching it!

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During the game, Maria is chatting to Amie in Australia who is watching the game in a casino with a lot of noisy Brits.  Amie and her boyfriend Tom have decided that should England win they will return to watch the semi-final and final!  Maria quickly changes the UK anthem “It’s coming home” to “She’s coming home”, one very excited mummy. You also know that Maria will be stalking the plane all the way back, following it on one of the plane tracker apps.

It’s been quite an active day and with some alcohol and fun.  We are due to have a BBQ on the beach at Osea but that is starting to look unlikely.  We discover that Russ has been working seven days a week for a lot of weeks, the poor baby is tired and needs an appointment with Mr Pillow.  But like all babies (sorry, Russ 🙂 ), he is fighting it and wants to stay up.  He gets into his rib to go to the beach to start getting ready leaving Sarah with us.  Our other guests are going to have to rush off if they are going to catch the tide and rather than delay them, I offer to drop Sarah back at the boat.  Firstly, we’ll check on Russ who is at the beach, that is asleep on the beach….I drop off Sarah so she can take him back and we will cancel the BBQ and do something else.

So it is time for a proper impromptu Mariadz party with just Maria and I.  Sometimes these are the best.  We work out the food and are dancing, singing and drinking until quite late.  We clearly aren’t thinking too much about our decision to leave at a reasonable time the next morning to go to Pyefleet!

The next morning we are both quite “tired”. I have not forgotten that I should clear the weed from the anchor buoy, we do not want a repeat of the anchor stowing problem as the buoy, weighed down by tens of kilo of seaweed, pulled the anchor round.

I hop into the rib and try to start it.  The starter motor doesn’t even engage and the engine check light and buzzer are going, could it need oil?  Now where is the oil….. of course all of the oil is back at the pontoon.  We always check the engine prior to leaving and have never had recourse to add oil after we have left the pontoon so (obviously) it is stored at the pontoon!  That will change and of course we never do a rib engine check before we leave.  There is still a leak from the drain hole at the stern of the rib so that will be two things I need to fix.

The worst is that no rib means no seafood platter from the oyster bar at Mersea, grrrr.  We had looked forward to be able to drop the rib and go in to get some lovely fresh food.  We’ll work out a plan later.

So we have no rib to go over to the anchor buoy but it is only twenty or so metres away so I will swim over, clear the weed and then swim back.  Maria is health and safety today and she decides that we are only doing that if I am attached to the boat by a line and of course I am wearing one of the buoyancy aids for the kayak.  I dutifully tie a bowline around my ankle and I am on my way.  It’s going really well as I head towards our orange buoy.  Then I am stopped dead by the line, a few metres short.  Ok I am close enough so let’s lose the line and grab the buoy, I have to change course slightly to avoid missing it and that feels a little harder than it was at first.  But I am at the buoy, and there is a lot of weed on it.  Clear that and climb down the line to make sure that I get all of the weed even the mass that is a fair bit underwater.  The line is clear of weed so I am ready to swim back.  Now of course the reason it was so easy to get there was that the tide was running at over one knot, I could easily have just drifted onto the anchor buoy and didn’t need to swim at all.  Coming back is not going to be as easy.  Doing a front crawl with a large buoyancy aid isn’t going to work too well so I set off at a steady pace.  I am making barely perceptible progress across the twenty metre divide.  It is taking an age, and in a slightly hungover state, I am getting tired fast.  As I get to within five metres I ask Maria to throw a line and after a couple of attempts I am able to grab it and pull myself in.  That was a lot harder than I expected and I am relieved to get back on board Mariadz.  It is a long time before I feel good though since the combination of a hangover and a lot of physical exertion has really nailed me.

The anchor is up, stowed and anchor ball away with a minimum of fuss although with quite a bit of mud on me and Mariadz.  We’re heading up to the top of the Blackwater and Mersea Island although there is minimal wind and, as always, we are heading directly into whatever wind there is.

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As usual there are a lot of craft on the water and the super-fast small catamarans are making the most of the wind.  Its gives me an opportunity to take even more pictures.

Its approaching low tide, as we get to the top of the river and around Mersea is quite shallow.  Even with our shaol keel that draws on six feet, we will not be taking any risks.  We see a large catamaran on the inside route going past a small boat with all of its sail up and stationary.  Definitely glad we didn’t take any risks even though it probably adds an hour to our journey.  The whole way back maria is stalking her daughter, following her every move as she boards the plan and flies home.

We arrive in the Colne and near to the Pyefleet channel at 4pm which is later than we normally like to finish.  It is like Sainsbury’s car park, there are over twenty boats in a reasonable thin, shallow channel. We could try and tiptoe our way through and see if we could find somewhere but the problem would be extricating ourselves if we changed our mind.  It is too busy for us to contemplate going in especially at low water where our manoeuvers could be restricted by the depth of the water.  We decide to anchor in the River Colne opposite Brightlingsea and near to the beach where it is a bit quieter. We don’t often have to consider where to anchor with respect to other boats because we arrive before a number but today we have to pick our spot. We did well, on this occasion, and there is a large gap between us and everyone else, which continues even after a change of tide and direction. Sunset is lovely and it is amazingly quiet, you can even hear the birds twittering on the shore. It’s a good anchorage apart from the occasional motorboat on the plane heading towards Brightlingsea and not thinking about the wash they are creating but I guess you can’t everything and you are on a river. We have had couple of late nights so tonight will be a quiet one as Maria gets to preparing a Sunday Roast to eat on deck.

The next day, we have light winds and, despite still having a couple of days left, decide to head back to Harwich.  I later find out that this is so that Maria can go and get the seafood platter that she had wanted.  The winds are a little light for Mariadz but as we enter the Wallet, we agree that we will sail up as much as we can.

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After we have left the River Colne there are only a few boats out, a catamaran that has come from near where we anchored and a smaller yacht.  I have some work to do so the sails are up and I start working as Maria guides us back to the River Orwell.  We are not making much progress but we are not in a rush.  However, after a couple of hours we are clearly going slower than we should, and I am sure the little yacht is in front of us. So I put the laptop down and address the sail situation. To this point we had been doing about 3.5-4.5 knots but I set about trimming the sails and I have us up to 6 knots.  That’s more like it.  Although when we turn at the top of the Wallet the wind will go across our beam and I suspect we will lose all speed.  That is exactly what happens and we don’t want to be arriving at Ha’penny pier too late especially as we can’t anchor off and take the rib in.  We decide to motor-sail through the Medusa channel which keeps our speed up and still feels like sailing as we generate our own wind.

As we head into the harbour the wind is picking up so I am quickly taking down all of the sails as Maria starts to bring Mariadz in towards Harwich.  The tide is flooding in and the wind is in the same direction and so Maria and I agree that we need to turn Mariadz around and approach into wind and tide.  I have to quickly get the fenders and lines in place as Maria holds station and then we are on approach.  As we get closer it is clear that the wind is slightly blowing us off the pier, and we have had problems with that before.  I know I need to get the bowline or midline on quickly and then Maria can then use that and the engine to bring the stern into the pier.    Maria has brought her in close but the bow is beginning to be blow off and the stern is still ten feet off.  A quick burst of bow thruster and a turn to the left brings her close enough that I can lasso the cleat and tie off.  A turn away from the pontoon and tick over forward brings the stern in as the line stops the bow moving out.  Fender touch and I am off and the stern is tied on and finally the bow.  We are done! And actually quite pleased with ourselves.  Ha’penny pier has had some problems recently with people untying the lines of visiting boats on the pier but they have responded by putting a security gate up that is closed outside of the hours of the ferry running.  There has been a slight increase in the charges to fund this but it gives you piece of mind.

After our failure yesterday, we are going to head to the Alma, famous for its steaks and lobster, to get a seafood platter but have decided we won’t eat it in house but will have a takeaway.  I suspect that is the first for the staff we met on the day but you can’t stop Maria getting what she wants merely with a broken down rib!, can’t keep a girl down for long!

Once back on the boat, we settle down to eat our food and are joined by a very inquisitive Clyde….did someone mention seafood platter, prawns….hmmm.

We are settled in our surroundings and one of the things I love about boating life is the friendliness of everyone.  Everyone you meet is friendly.  You may meet and decide you don’t get on but everyone is keen to introduce themselves and today is no exception.  A family of six arrive on a small motorboat and are coming to Harwich to celebrate a family birthday.  It’s already starting to get dark and after dinner the parents decide to return via taxi rather than braving the motor boat in the dark.  They are all very friendly though and have had a nice time as they prepare to return to Brightlingsea.  Similarly a smaller yacht on the inside of the pier has two gentleman on board and they pop over to introduce themselves with what can only be described as firewater! A shot of this and we needed some port to wash it down.  All in all a lovely last evening of our time away.

The wind has definitely strengthened and it is a rocking and rolling night on Ha’penny pier and not in a nice way! Even Mariadz moved around a little and we were rocked gently to sleep, neither of us having a problem with a little bit of movement.

When we awake in the morning, the wind has turned around Northerly which explains why it was quite so bump and we are pinned to the pier with our fenders working hard. The tide is coming through quite quickly and I wonder whether we can use that and the bow thruster to overcome the wind and push us off the pier.  We start the manoeuver and the stern comes off nicely but she doesn’t come off completely and so we decide there is too much risk involved in that approach and we will try and old favourite.  We decide to spring off the bow and so I put all of our port side fenders protecting the bow and Maria steers into the pier swinging the stern out to 45 degrees as the line holds the bow, almost exactly the opposite of the way we got onto the pier in the first place.  Once there, she can switch to astern and pull Mariadz away from the pier before flicking everything round and leaving Harwich behind us.  Of course we have had to do this in front of an audience and so the pressure was on.  Apart from having to move some fenders amidships, it goes without a hitch and we coordinate me removing the line as Maria changes direction.

However, the previous evening our guests, or more precisely the bottle of port we drank, have killed Maria off so there will be no sailing today even though there may be enough in the wind to get us going!  Since it is now a Tuesday, there is very little on the water….apart from that big cargo carrier coming right at us, obviously.  Actually, it is a very nice trip back up the river without a care in the world and a short working week to come.  We’re even able to finally get a picture of the cottage that looks like a smiling face. Well it does to us and I guess that is important. The weather is still great though and Maria’s hangover is starting to go. It’s been a great few days and we have had some sociable times but also some time for just the two of us. We think that will be a little like when we are cruising full time.

We had wanted to rush back to make sure we were in Ipswich at the time the RAF100 memorial flight, celebrating 100 years of the RAF, flew over Ipswich on its way to London.

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It looks like we will be a little late as we are still five minutes away from the Orwell bridge at the time they are meant to come overhead.  Then it happens, all of the jets that constituted the fly-past are directly overhead every few seconds.  We are able to get loads of photos but unfortunately we have missed the older slower planes which must have come earlier or gone a different route.  It is still very exciting though as we, and a couple of other boats do little circuits within the river so that we get the best view,

Soon after, we are home and I set about cleaning down Mariadz while Maria drives to South Woodham Ferrers to visit Amie, who has landed and been driven back home.

One of my jobs is to sort the rib out.  I quickly uncover why it is not starting, some fool left it in gear, some days later I realised it was I that was the fool!  The warning buzzer is still going intermittently but I later find that it indicates that the engine is due a service, a bit like the flashing light on the dashboard of your car.  Fixing the drain hole is a little more tricky.  I had initially suggested we bring Mariadz in astern onto a pontoon and then drop the rib so we could work on it in the dry.  That didn’t happen.  So I decide I am going to sit on the paddle board and adjust the fitting while the rib hangs from the davits.  What could possibly go wrong.  I have discovered that the rubber chord that holds the bung near to the whole has a rubber washer which has come out.  So I need to unscrew the bung hole a little, bang it through so that I can refit the rubber washer and then tighten it up again.  All whilst sitting on a paddle board. I need to get some tools out and put them on the swim deck, what’s the betting some of them will in Davy Jones’ locker by the end of this little job.  Actually it goes fine and after a couple of tests, I have tightened it up enough to seal the gap and stop the leak.  Now I  just need to work out how to service the outboard and switch off the service indicator but that can wait.

It’s been a great few days and it has reinforced the belief that Maria and I share that this is what we want to do for a long period.

On the other hand the blog is a lot of words so hopefully I haven’t lost you.

Is anyone out there still?

{tumbleweed}

So we have had a hard week after returning from a stunning holiday.  The previous weekend we returned from Antigua which you could have called a beach holiday or us doing a recce of suitable anchorages. Maria always seems to have ants in her pants and this was no exception with the holiday being punctuated by two trips around the island on a sailing catamaran, two days driving around the island, two visits to Shirley heights with dancing all night, two trips to an adjacent hotel, a tour of English Harbour, kayaking and sailing a hobbie cat! Very restful, not!

This holiday had arrived at a good time after the tragic news of Maria’s youngest sister passing unexpectedly. The funeral was scheduled for when we returned which of course meant it was going to be very hard emotionally. On Thursday, Natalie was laid to rest in a very fitting ceremony. On our return to the boat on Friday, I felt that Maria needed to get away from it all and so told her to pick up some bait from the fishing tackle shop – yes, that’s right, time to feed the crabs again!

This weekend was also the Thames Barge Match and last year we found a fantastic spot to watch the races of these glorious old sailing ships. We were lucky to get some fantastic pictures of these last year so let’s do that again. The wind forecast was for a very light northerly wind.

As we cast off our lines on Friday afternoon, the wind seemed quite a bit more than the forecast 10 knots but that shouldn’t be a problem. I am still working as we head down river and I have to disappear to the fore peak to do an important call for work. When I emerge we are at the moorings opposite Suffolk Yacht Harbour at Levington. Maria has flicked Mariadz round to go into the wind which is gusting in excess of 20 knots. I am ready with the boat hook in hand and a line ready to thread through the buoy. We communicate quite well and Maria gets the boat perfectly positioned for the pickup. I have grabbed the pick up line and haul it up to the deck to thread our line through. So far so good. Our line is through and it is then that I notice that our line is in between the guard rail lines, that help to keep us all in the boat. How did that happen? I have a technique where the lines are run around the outside of the boat to avoid this so clearly I have messed up badly here. So I have to keep hold of the buoy with the boat hook, while I unthread our line, pull it out of the guard rail line and rethread it. All while Maria holds Mariadz on station against a strong current and now 24 knots of wind. We are now broadside on to the wind which rather limits Maria’s options and we are struggling. I decide it would be best just to start again. The line is dropped but the boat hook is snagged on the buoy and won’t release. I am being pulled by twenty tonne of sailing yacht away from the buoy and I am desperately trying to hold on to the boat hook. Maria is able to moneouvre us a little closer and I can extricate the boat hook. Let’s try that again….. the approach for the second attempt isn’t quite as smooth as the first, the wind seems to be stronger and gusting, definitely not what is on the prediction. We get close and I have grabbed the buoy again. I know the line is right this time but I can’t get it through the buoy, I am still holding on as the gusts get the better of Maria’s boat control and we are getting dragged further away from the buoy. It’s ok, I have got it….. my shoulders, back and forearms are protesting as I try to manhandle the buoy close enough to get the line through. And then I can take no more, I let go and get to watch our third metal extendable boat hook disappear into the River Orwell. I strongly suspect we are making a little pile of these down there! Maybe a metal version of Jenga. I am sorely tempted to dive down one day before we leave and retrieve the stockpile.

Anyway, we are not having that! The backup boat hook is called into action! This time we will get it right. There is, of course, an argument that when you are being given a hammering by the elements and Lady Luck, it is probably best to cut your losses. That’s not how we roll on Mariadz, although maybe in future it will be. The interesting thing about the backup boat hook is that unlike the primary one, it floats….you are probably wondering how I know that. Interestingly, I only discovered this today on our third attempt at the same buoy. At least it seemed that the boat hook floated as it remained attached to the buoy after I had been forced to let it go (again). Retrieval was going to be an interesting lesson in boat handling as Maria approached the buoy from astern with me on the swimming platform.  After a couple of attempts, we had mastered the approach and I was able to retrieve the boat hook. I guess this really didn’t prove that it floated since it was still attached to the buoy. The floating theory was proved on our next attempt when the boat hook was let go again, and disconnected from the buoy and floated off down the Orwell with us going astern chasing it down! Maria was getting adept at going astern to pick up boat hooks so we don’t go too far to get it back. Ironically, we caught up with it adjacent to another buoy which we were alongside for ages, but on the wrong side!

The reason we were struggling was the design off the hook itself which worked well at picking up the buoy but rather less well at letting it go again after I had threaded our line through it. I couldn’t get it off even though I had the line through. One last attempt or we are going to anchor somewhere! We are nothing if we are not stubborn! Once again, Maria gets the approach spot on and this time it is textbook. Buoy is pulled up, line threaded through and boat hook disconnected before walking to the bow of the boat to tie off the end on another cleat! Of course this would have happened the first time, and I would have saved a boat hook, if I hadn’t had the line twisted through the guard rail wires! We can now lick our wounds, despair at our losses and get a well earned beer – we must have burned enough calories to justify that!

As we gently swing around the mooring, we start to set ourselves up for some relaxation with the table and chairs out and Maria starting to get her fishing gear ready. 

I may have mentioned that Maria had visited the fishing tackle shop, where she had been able to entertain them with her stories of catching fish including the infamous “three skate” at Osea Island. They are suitably impressed by her prowess but do point out that if she catches sea bass this weekend she has to throw them back. That’s typical. Nothing is going to stop her having her fun though.  At least the wind seems to be dying and the sun is out so the perfect opportunity to top up our Antiguan tans!

Maria has the fishing rods out of their bag but, unfortunately, one of the reels doesn’t seem to be working correctly and there is a metallic rattle coming from within it.  Maria has decided that it is time to take the reel apart and sort it out so that she can continue fishing. Now those that know me well, will know that I was a bit of a whizz with clocks in my youth.  You could bring me a broken clock and I would take the whole thing apart meticulously, find the problem and put it back together again. As an added bonus you would even get a few spare parts in  addition to your still broken clock. It was therefore with some apprehension that I serviced the winches last year but that seemed to go ok and they all still seem to work 🙂 How hard can it be….

Fishing reels are probably more like a clock than a winch….. certainly having looked at the diagram. We start to take it apart and I lay the pieces out in order on the deck to remind us what order to put them back in. As we get to the body of the reel, we have undone the screws and as the body cracks open a spring pops out…. Any idea where that came from darling…..Nope! Oh dear, this has got clock written all over it! We continue to try and understand the problem and it appears that a couple of screws have come off. Problem understood it is now time to put everything back together again. But we still have no idea where the strange shaped object and the spring go. The diagram isn’t really helping either. After some time the obvious solution comes to me and I can see how the shaft fits through the body and therefore where it needs to go. Mystery solved, I set about putting everything back together. To be fair this has probably taken over an hour by now, there will be no more fishing tonight! Having established how everything should go back together, actually putting it back together correctly keeping all the parts in place seems to be a different matter all together. Eventually I succeed in getting the body closed and it seems to be right. Either way, I am not taking it apart again and all of the parts seem to be back in place.  Ten minutes later it is the moment of truth….and the mechanism is working. Let’s see how well it does tomorrow.

Dinner is a quiet affair in the cockpit with the sounds of the water and various bird life twittering away. It’s a reasonably early night and we know, after the week we have had, it will be a good night’s sleep.

The next morning there is the light northerly breeze that we were expecting and it is bright with some sunshine. Excellent conditions for the Thames Barges and I suspect that we will see a lot of sail up today. Maria starts fishing and miraculously the reel seems to be working better today. Maybe all those years with clocks wasn’t a complete waste of time! She is still not catching anything though with most of her bait being eaten by snails or crabs. We also discover that our friends Amanda and Mark were at Levington the previous evening and witnessed the entertainment, particularly us chasing our second boat hook back up the river, backwards. So there will be no bending of the truth in this blog….

It’s closing on 10am when the racing is due to start but not before we get the opportunity to experience an amazingly thoughtless motorboater. I saw him coming up the river for a little while on the plane with a huge wash behind him.

He decides to cut the corner of the river and fly through the moorings causing havoc behind him. Unfortunately the boat had no markings and you know they would not have been listening to the radio.  Just a shame they were so inconsiderate of everyone else.

We hear the first horn at pin mill for the start of the first race of the fastest barges.  These are large with a lot of sail and it is all flying today. Another commercial barge, hydrogen, is following them down the river offering great views of the race. They are also well positioned so that they don’t get in the way of the photos tho :).

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The second race is a very close affair at the start with another viewing barge Thistle right in amongst it. Unfortunately this meant that there was little chance of getting really good pictures until they were past us.  To be honest I was just happy that Thistle missed us as they pass close enough that we can talk to their guests without raising our voices.

After the last race has gone past us, we decide to go. We could have waited for the return of the barges as the race finishes in the late afternoon, but decide that we would rather head to tonight’s anchorage in the Stour rather than waiting til late in the day. The weather and the barges have certainly brought out a lot of boats though as I happily snap away at anything with a sail up!

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Like yesterday, the wind is very gusty and varying from 1 knot to 18 knots. It’s a bit tricky to set a sail for that! We are also against the tide and having spent an age around Harwich tacking and making little progress, we decide to motorsail down the river so that we can arrive a few miles up the river before dark.

Once anchored, which goes without a hitch, Maria is back to fishing for crabs and snails…. sorry I mean fishing, but catching crabs and snails! An afternoon of chilling is disturbed by the arrival of our friends Stig and Widya from Wild Dream II on their rib. They are playing about on the water and come on board for a quick chat and a small drink. We sit out on the aft deck chilling, chatting, drinking a glass or two and eating nibbles. What a lovely relaxing time.

You’ll notice that the cats haven’t featured prominently so far, this is because they have been asleep all the time.  They must have been running around while we weren’t here because they seem shattered now. Eventually Clyde stirs but it will take a lot to get Bonnie to wake up before early evening. Of course she will then be a terror during the evening as she prowls the decks.

It’s getting to evening time and we need to start thinking about dinner. Firstly Maria gives the cats their treats, licky licks for Bonnie and a couple of prawns for the boy, he really is a prawn monster – can’t get enough of them. That wakes them up. Just in time to hassle us as we have our grilled meats and salad for dinner. We stay up in the cockpit until late and at this time of year it is 10pm before we see the spectacular sunset over the Royal Hospital School.

One advantage of the long sunny days is that the solar power works amazingly well. On this day we pull in more than 5KWh of power and the batteries are fully topped up despite using the kettle, microwave, ice maker and water heater from time to time during the day.

Sunday morning is another glorious day and a day for watching England in the World Cup finals as they play Panama at lunchtime. We decide to leave at about 10am to be back in good time. The boat is prepped quickly and having remembered to switch off the anchor alarm, I go forward to raise the anchor.  Normally we are half a mile down river when we recognise the alarm going off saying we are dragging our anchor so it is good that we have been able to remember it this once. The first step is to remove the deck snubbers that protect the windlass from any snatching of the chain. The chain is then lifted a few metres to ease the tension on the main anchor snubber which normally takes the strain just below the waterline. This acts as a shock absorber, eases the load across our two bow cleats and protects our top sides from a rubbing chain. So far all good. The remainder of the chain is lifted and the anchor breaks the surface. Maria gets the signal that she has control but no bow thruster since the anchor buoy is still in the water. Normally I stow the anchor before removing the buoy line that is tied to the roll bar, which also acts as a trip for the anchor if necessary. I try to stow the anchor which is coming up backwards for some reason.  It will normally flip as it comes through the bow roller so I am not concerned. Not this time though. The anchor steadfastly refuses to twist to its correct position despite my constant attempts to lower and raise it. I can’t understand what is going on, but one last try and the anchor starts to turn but then jams across the bow roller. It’s stuck fast and no amount of pushing or leaning over the bow and pulling is budging it. While I think this through I decide to retrieve the buoy and suddenly the culprit is uncovered. The buoy and the line are covered in six feet of thick seaweed. That doesn’t sound so bad but I can not lift it! This pull against the top of the anchor must have stopped it turning. There must be in excess of thirty kilos of seaweed attached. I tie the line off with the buoy next to the bow and retrieve my trusty boat hook to start peeling the layers of seaweed off, it is a difficult job at full stretch but eventually enough comes off for me to lift the buoy and clear the rest by hand. I can now detach the buoy from the partially but solidly stowed anchor. We’ll be bow to the pontoon in our home berth so I will sort this out later. It must have looked quite strange as we returned up the Orwell to Ipswich.

There really isn’t enough wind for Mariadz especially running with the wind so there will no sailing today 😦 The weather is glorious though and a lot better than the two predictions I had shared with Maria so we are quite happy as we motor back at a steady 5-6 knots. We arrive back at Ipswich lock and it has gone 12:30, less than 30 mins to kick off. This is going to be tight. As Maria moneuvers Mariadz into her berth, Fraser, who runs the committee boat for the barge race comes to help us tie up. He does a great job and also resists the urge to point out the jaunty angle that our anchor has taken. What a lovely man. We set up the tv to watch the game from the aft deck and the teams are coming out. We have made it just in time.

The game is a great success for England who lead 5-0 at half time. Now to sort out that anchor. With five minutes of effort I am able to manhandle the anchor and unjam it. It settles down perfectly for stowing since it no longer has a load of weight dragging it the wrong way. At least that isn’t a big problem! For the second half we are joined by Amanda and Mark who regale us with tales of watching two numptees make a hash of picking up a buoy on Friday night…. oh well that is undeniable then. I point out the near gale force winds, the full speed of the tide and Maria’s valiant attempts to balance Mariadz on a sixpence but they don’t stop giggling at us. The England game comes to a satisfactory conclusion at 6-1 and the drinks are flowing.

For some time, Maria has been nagging for a paddle board. I have resisted the urge to spend a lot of money on this until she has absolutely demonstrated that she can use one.  We were due to have a trial in Antigua but this fell through. Considering everything else that we did, this probably wasn’t a bad thing. Discussing this with Amanda and Mark provided an interesting insight, Amanda loves it but Mark didn’t get on with the paddle board at all. To the extent, that he would gladly sell his board. So Maria gets to try a board and I have been stitched up again.

Maria does have to test drive the board though after a few drinks…. this should be funny! Firstly, Amanda shows how it is done and gracefully paddles around the Marina. Next up, Maria. Getting on the board from the bathing platform is pretty good but the next stage is key. Like surfing, you have to get up onto your feet and balanced, except surfing wasn’t too easy when we tried it eighteen months ago in Australia! Like a sprinter, Maria wiggles her bottom before getting to her feet, and she’s up! On the first attempt. Step two is to paddle and Maria is settling into this before deciding it is time to stand up. The last words before she face-planted into the water were – “I think I am getting the hang of this”. No amount of words can paint the comedic picture effectively. So here are a couple of videos:

So the end of a fantastic weekend with lovely sailing boats, relaxing times, no fish being caught and then the entertainment. It was good to get away from everything.

For the August bank holiday last year, we visited Osea Island, location of the retreat that Amy Winehouse visited for rehab. This has since closed down but the island is very nice and in good weather feels like it could be in the Mediterranean or Caribbean. So with a sunny bank holiday expected, we decided it was time to return to the anchorage adjacent to the island where we had a fantastic time.

The plan was to leave very early on Friday morning with a view to arriving at the island early in the morning so that we could both do a full days work. One advantage  of living on board is that when working from home, your home can be anywhere 🙂

To try and reduce the travel time on Friday, we decided to get away on Thursday evening with a view to picking up a mooring ball at Levington and saving over an hour on our journey time. Unfortunately by the time we get home and get the boat ready, it’s already nearly 7pm when we leave Ipswich to head down river. It is incredibly quiet on the river with the tide pushing us down the river and it feels like the holiday has started even though we have a full work day on Friday. Both cats are relaxed and Maria is keeping an eye out as we motor downriver.

We get down to Suffolk Yacht Harbour at Levington and find all six of the mooring buoys opposite the marina are free.  We pick up a buoy at the first attempt, admittedly having spun round it a little to start with as we initially approached it with the tide but Maria is able to turn Mariadz around on a six pence using the tide and I can grab the buoy. It is going to be an early night since we plan to be up at 5am the next morning, exactly as if we were travelling to London for work. Even going against the tide, we expect to arrive at Osea Island shortly after 10am.

So we get to watch the sunset, eat sensibly and catch up on a few TV programmes, and settle down for a good nights sleep. In fact that was the last time the TV was switched on all weekend which has to be a good barometer of a good time! Sunrise the next day over Levington is glorious as we get up at 5:15 and we are feeling good and happy. Those that know Maria in the morning will know that this is unusual!

A night at anchor gives us a view of our power consumption overnight and monitoring is showing the batteries at 82% of usable capacity (which is 50% of rated capacity) so less than 10% of their total capacity has been used.  We would expect that to be replenished by the solar but with the wind we have we will be motoring for hours anyway so the batteries will be fully charged when we stop. This weekend should be a good test of whether our solar capacity can keep up with our usage.

There is very little wind as we exit Felixstowe and head through the Medusa channel towards the wallet but what little there is will be on the nose the whole away, and against the tide! This is the price you pay when you are guided by your watch rather than the tides but we need to be settled down and anchored to do a full day’s work and the weather will not be dangerous. Normally of course, we would optimise our passages for the tides so instead of being held back by two knots, you gain two knots. At our average cruising speed this makes a huge difference from 9.5 knots down to 5.5 knots. Imagine how quickly we’d have made it if the tides were favourable! It’s going to be over thirty miles of motoring so not much fun.

Even at this time of the morning, Felixstowe is very busy and as usual the Lobster pots in the medusa channel need to be avoided. I have mixed emotions about these since they are a hazard best avoided but if they weren’t there where would the Alma in Harwich get it’s delicious lobster from? The lobster pots are one of the reasons we normally wait til daylight for this part of the trip, they are everywhere and you need to keep a sharp lookout to avoid one getting wrapped around the keel or prop.  Although we have a rope cutter around the prop which should cut the line holding the pot, that isn’t ideal and I wouldn’t want to bank on it working.

By 6:30am, we have made the top of the wallet and are against wind and tide but the lack of wind means it is flat and a grey/brown colour. So the only thing to do is take photos of all the other people mad enough to venture out on a Friday morning. There aren’t many!

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So we are travelling slowly, by our standards, down the wallet flanked by the coast on one side and the wind farm which seems to go on forever at this pace. When we go to Burnham, we have to cross the spitway but for Osea, we need to continue past Bradwell and into the Blackwater. Both of these routes require a little care because of the shallows, especially on a falling tide like today. So we tiptoe through the shallows to avoid having to take a bigger detour and subsequent delay. Looking at the track on our chart plotter, it looks like we have zigzagged in some kind of submarine avoidance manoeuvre. But as we emerge into the Blackwater, the clouds are breaking up and the sun is trying to break through. Now Maria can be a bit of a bad influence in these situations, asking whether we should just take the day off and have fun! She is a very naughty girl and I point out if work phone or email will she answer, of course the answer is yes, and so we won’t be taking the day off then!

The weather is improving by the minute and in the Blackwater we have blue sky, sun and glassy water. There is still very little out on the water but with the prediction for the weather that will change over the weekend and I’m sure we will see a lot of the boats moored in Mersey coming down the river. This time I have tried to avoid the cliched Radio Caroline picture! It’s just after 10am as we arrive in the anchorage and there is not a soul around. The weather is glorious and Maria selects her usual spot to anchor.  This will be the first test of the new remote for the windlass….. of course it works, was there really any reason to doubt it. Within minutes the anchor is set, snubbers and anchor buoy deployed with the anchor ball flying. We can settle down to get on with our work until mid afternoon when we can switch off, well we did start answering emails at 5:30am!

Maria decides that flushed from her recent success, she is going to set up the fishing rods. Unfortunately due to our late departure on Thursday, we missed the tackle shop and so she is baiting with squid only rather than combining with the rag worm she has used previously. I strongly suspect that she is getting her excuses in early! We settle down knowing full well she is not going to catch anything. This is shame since Maria is hoping to prepare a paella for dinner, we’ll have to wait and see.

There are a couple of false alarms from weed getting caught on the line but then Boom, the rod goes wild. Maria runs up to see what she has… the strain on the rod is immense and Maria is struggling as I retrieve the net from the bow and fill a bucket with water – see I didn’t have much confidence that we would see fish this time. As her catch nears the surface it is huge and looks to be a skate, or thorn backed ray. What do you do with those…clearly we have no idea. We don’t even know how to kill it never mind prepare it. I fall back to an approach we were given to kill fish – gin in the gills. But it seems the skate is quite liking this. We search the internet but are no closer to a decision on how to kill it. All of this combined with Maria’s opinion that it looked “too cute” means we retrieve the hooks and release it back into the water. It swims off but not in a straight line since it is probably drunk. I’m sure it will be back later with some mates asking for more gin and squid. That Mariadz, they know how to throw a fish party!

However it is only a handful of minutes later that  Maria strikes again catching another, smaller ray, this time we decide quickly to return it.  If only we had caught a couple of bass…. although I do spend some time complaining that I quite fancied trying skate!

So it is Paela for dinner, but not caught by Maria. Although quite how she would have sourced the pork and chicken on the water, I have no idea… maybe a swimming cow giving a pig a ride that got caught on her line.

After dinner, we are sitting in the cockpit watching the sun go down over the island, where some other yachts have anchored and it is bliss. Unlike last night, we are out there beyond 9pm, dirty stop-outs!

The cats are very comfortable on the boat, wherever we are.  They spend most of the day chilling either down below or in the cockpit which is now incredibly comfortable for them with new cushions and cat mats. However, at night, Bonnie in particular, comes alive and wants to go exploring her surroundings. She will walk the deck and sit on the bow peering out for hours before coming in for the night to chill. At some stage we will have to put up nets on the guide wires around the deck to give us additional security and hopefully stop them falling in.  At the moment we rig fenders with covers on each side of the boat so that they can claw themselves back on if necessary.

Another glorious morning with blue skies and not a cloud to be seen and we are awake quite early. This time the culprit is Clyde demanding attention, jumping on the bed, our bodies and our heads. He really wants a fuss. So did I, but my demands for attention fall on deaf ears. Proof that cats are worse than kids!

It may be early but it is certainly not a lazy morning. One of the problems with this part of the river is also one of its charms. The river is used by all types of watercraft and there seems to be little adherence to the speed limit of 8 knots by the speed boats and jet skis. Now that’s something I don’t get. I watch the jet skis going up and down, mostly in straight lines at great speed, at least thevisnt much of a wake to disturb us so it is just the engine noise. They then turn around and do the same again. I used to enjoy driving sports cars but the thrill was the handling and acceleration rather than the outright speed in a straight line. I am now reminiscing about two seater soft tops and I won’t be allowed another one of those! Still each to their own and the jet skiers seem to be enjoying themselves even if they are spoiling our tranquility. To my mind though it’s a waste of fuel! Water skiing, on the other hand, I can get especially if the person is very good, today though we mostly have people going up and down firmly hanging on rather than the acrobatics we have seen before.

We are pottering around the boat playing music and the day is heating up as the weekend builds to the hottest May bank holiday in years.

The solar array is doing wonders. When we woke up in the morning the batteries had provided all of our power for the night, a boiled kettle for breakfast, hot water from the tank and Maria’s very powerful hair dryer for ages as she dried her very long hair. All of this and we have used 120Ah of battery which at 24V is about 2.5KWh. Over the admittedly sunny weekend, we averaged 4-5KWh per day for our 720W of solar. With our daily use this means that the batteries are pretty much staying topped up purely on solar and definitely would be if we showed a little more restraint in our power usage.

Since we will be anchored for a while I decide to break out our hammock and rig it between the mast and the staysail. Using the chords that came with it, I tie it to a secure spot on the mast and to the clearing on the stay sail. This makes it nice and high and I don’t think should be causing any damage. I am also able to persuade Maria that with our new svelt bodies , the rig should be able to take our combined weight, dubiously she gives it a go! It’s a lovely relaxing day and I break it up by taking pictures of the passing watercraft like some kind of demented yacht equivalent of a train spotter. Still it keeps me occupied 🙂 .

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While I have been pottering, Maria has been in touch with her cousin who is going to come and visit us for 24 hours. They will be driving to Maldon where they can leave the car and I can pick them up in the rib before bringing them the four miles back up river. We’re quite a bit off high tide when we decide to leave and we notice it is quite muddy around the river. Arrival at Maldon is an interesting affair as we can see that the landing pontoon is high and dry with some water around the end. We can just about approach the pontoon but it is three foot to the pontoon. We’re both able to scramble off the rib which I’m sure we would have struggled with pre-diet. There are a few bars in this part of Maldon and we decide to sit in the Queens Head, right on the waterfront, well mud-front to be precise, while we wait for Denise and Kirk to arrive.

They arrive and we find them somewhere to park, not easy in this part of Maldon! A quick drink before donning life jackets for the trip back. Connie the rib (named after Clyde and Bonnie incidentally) is quite lightweight with a 20hp Suzuki injection outboard. However, we are now four up in her with an overnight bag and some essential supplies that they have brought – looks like alcohol and snacks to me! Even flat out we are only making six knots so it is going to be a leisurely trip back to Mariadz. At least we can see all the sights!  As we return to the anchorage to Mariadz in all her glory, the area Ian noticeably busier than it was when we left.

Maria has also been speaking to some sailing friends Russ and Sarah, who are getting their boat out of Maldon when there is enough tide and coming to the anchorage. This was the couple we met last August when we were last at Osea and we had a great time. When they arrive a little later in the afternoon, they come on board for a few drinks and of course they are no empty handed… oh dear this could get messy…. again!

Russ is apparently a very accomplished fisherman and so Maria takes advantage to get a fishing lesson despite her success with skate the day before. After several hours the catch is a little underwhelming – skate, 0 sea bass, 0 whiting, 0 mackerel. But i am sure Maria has learnt some useful techniques.

Evening falls on a great day as we are happily chatting, enjoying a healthy barbecue and salads while we listen to music.

It is low tide and very dark when Russ and Sarah decide it is time to go back to their boat. Of course at low tide, Mariadz will turn around and face the incoming tide, having been facing the outgoing tide when they arrived. Since it is low water, Mariadz is actually pointing towards the shore, and their boat, one hundred maters away. However, Russ is on autopilot as he starts the outboard, having just fallen into the rib and banged his head! They gather up their stuff and head off on the same vector, with respect to Mariadz, as he had arrived…..which of course is now heading down river towards Bradwell!  This is despite me shining a torch at their boat lighting up the hull, and then waving the light at them. We have our very bright spreader lights on so when they realise they are lost, they will at least know their start point. They keep going for about ten minutes before I can hear the engine note change and they turn around to come back to us. They must have gone at least half a mile before realising their error but we didn’t make any comments about their navigation, well maybe a couple…

They are safely back on the boat and the four remaining revellers chat a little more before deciding it is time for bed. We even tidy up before we go so that everything is tidy for when we get up.  This is sharp contrast to what used to happen when we had the house in West Bergholt. It was not uncommon for us to be awake until after Dawn playing music in the bar but Denise has assured us that she is always up very early and is looking forward to seeing dawn. I think the forepeak bed will have something to say about that since it is so comfortable that we have had a number of light sleepers who claim they won’t sleep or who are up early find themselves knocking out the zzzzz until quite late in the morning. So it is no surprise to us when Denise emerges bleary-eyed three hours after dawn, another victory for the comfy Mariadz bed!

We clearly didn’t have that much to drink the night before since we are all up early and Maria already has the fishing rods out on another still, sunny and gorgeous day. We start to think about breakfast which of course will not be fish!

The batteries are in reasonable shape but with a huge requirement for hot water if we all shower, we decide to fire up the generator to provide hot water from its cooling system while the charger hammers power back into the batteries. After checking that the cooling system is working as expected I then switch on the electrical element too which will speed up the process.  I like to check the load while we are running the generator, I am convinced that the old generator was destroyed after 700 hours because it was constantly run at relatively little loads (I.e. 10%).  We generally have it as a minimum of 50% which is hopefully much better for it.

Denise and Kirk are looking to head back around lunchtime so that they can be back in time for the return of their sons who have been attempting the three peak challenge – the three tallest peaks in the UK in the space of 24 hours. A really hard task. They have also to return his new car that they borrowed 🙂

It’s gone mid day and the tide has turned again as the water rushes back into the river. Everyone is chilled and their have been no bites on the fishing lines, unless you count a small crab which decided to steal the bait. We are rally’s relaxed, fed and washed. In fact Denise, is dozing in the hammock so another triumph for Mariadz’s ability to get people to rest.

It is soon time to gather the belongings and return Denise and Kirk to Maldon. It’s probably half an hour earlier than when we went in yesterday so it will be tight but should be fine, or so we thought. In the interests of saving time and reducing the weight, Maria decides to remain on Mariadz which should make us faster. Now just to clarify, this in no way means Maria is heavy, I am not that brave and would quite reasonably fully expect to wake up next week if I suggested such a thing! I have emptied our las trip spare fuel can into the tank and we have about ten litres of fuel so I should top that up while in Maldon.

We make good speed on the way back to Maldon, but it is quite shallow….and now it is very shallow…. I hear a slight change in the outboard note, that will be mud then.  The electric tilt on the outboard comes into its own as a raise the prop as high as I can but we will still have half a mile to go. We have a portable Gardiner navigation device which is fitted to the rib and it claims that I should have two feet of water at this point but this clearly isn’t true as we stop dead on the mud in the middle of the channel. Maybe we should have left I think a little later. A trip least we are on a rising tide so we are not going to be left high and dry or stuck for too long.  We break out the one oar that comes with the walker bay rib, that wouldn’t be any use in an emergency. Kirk checks the depth and a fewminutes later we are free of the mud but we will go into Maldon very tentatively. Comically Kirk is still paddling with the oar but he is assisted by a 20hp engine so it isn’t too difficult. As we round the last bend into Maldon we are greeted by a small band of water and a lot of mud. There is no way we can get close to the pontoon. There is another pontoon slightly downstream but even that is 20-30 minutes away from having enough wate for us to land. Kirk dips his toe into the mud to see if it is walkable but even with a little weight on it, he isn’t getting enough resistance to give him confidence that he won’t sink up to his waist. So we are stuck in the boat and waiting for the tide. Now we have two anchors on the rib and I decide that to save fuel we will deploy an anchor while we wait. That works fine, once it gets a grip, but obviously looked quite strange from the banks of the river. Still it gave us a nice view of the Thames barges with Maldon behind, clearly that is why we did it! There is even a strip of mud around each of the Thames barges. Some very friendly gentlemen on these ask us if we are waiting to disembark and want to offer some help but we can’t work out a way we could get off and have to wait. It gives us ample time to consider that with the tide being an hour-ish later, we have effectively arrived in Maldon an hour and a half earlier in tides terms. One to remember for another time. The water is rising slowly and eventually we decide that we will do the whole marines beach approach and run Connie up the mud to the pontoon. On the first attempt I get deflected away from the pontoon and have to approach straighter. The second time we are bang on and nestle into the pontoon. We attach some lines and head up the pontoon to …. a locked gate. Oh! It looks climbable! So three fifty something’s climb the gate to get out, I’ll have to consider how I do that for the return.  We get some fuel and Kirk returns me to the gate I am able to clamber over and he can then pass me the fuel, my grab bag and some beautiful roses that’s they got for Maria, forgot and left in the car.

I am starting to get messages from Maria who is worried that my quick trip into Maldon seems to have taken an age, have I run out of fuel? It’s all good as I start the return leg and of course now I have nothing to worry about as the tide is coming in quickly.

One of Maria’s favourite films is Pretty Woman and one of the female characters dreams is to have a prince on a white horse come and save her which Richard Gere does in his limo holding a bunch of flowers. You can see where I am going here. I have worked out that I can do this in the rib.

With only one passenger, Connie gets us back really quickly and Maria is there sitting on the bathing platform with a drink ready for me. I do the whole Richard Gere thing before mildly panicking as I see two fishing lines in the water…. that could have been embarrassing.

In my absence even more boats have anchored including Amarelle, a beautiful motor boat from Ipswich which we have nicknamed rhubarb and custard because of its colour scheme. There are also three boats rafted together on a single anchor. Now I know it isn’t windy and I’m sure it is perfectly safe but I just don’t get it. The one deployed anchor will not be sized for three boats so I am grateful that should they drag, they will slip by us nicely since we are not on their line. I guess you shouldn’t judge people by your own standards and they settle down for their own fun evening.

We have invited John and Linda from Amarelle over for a cheeky sundowner and they are about to row over despite my offer to come and pick them up. Russ and Sarah also join us and we have an entertaining early evening bathed in sunshine. John and Linda return to Amarelle, but the party continues on the bow of Mariadz. Music is playing and there is the obligatory Amy Winehouse songs sung at the island 🙂

A few years ago, Maria and I recorded our little party piece of Islands in the Stream, as a form of motorhome karaoke. Unfortunately, Warner music decided that Maria sounded too much like Dolly Parton and had the soundtrack removed as a breach of copyright. I did ask them to reinstate it or sign us up but never got a reply. On this particular evening there has clearly been too much alcohol…..It is time! Dolly and Kenny aka Mariadz are in full voice – a Capella – ban that, Warner Music! 🙂 I believe it goes some way to demonstrating that we are not deserving of the record deal quite yet…..However, we do rather better a little later when we play our friend from Barbados, Buggy Nhakante, a fantastic reggae star.

So despite running the tranquility of the anchorage (apologies for that!), it has been a fun day and our last before the journey home to Ipswich on what promises to be the best day of the weekend weather-wise.

We’re up early in the morning but there is quite a bit of packing away to do before we can head off. There is a little wind so we may be able to sail too which is another level of tidying up and one we generally do anyway before venturing out to sea, well you never know when the perfect sailing conditions are going to arrive! A rib comes round and asks us if we have jump leads, apparently one of the motor boats has lost all batteries overnight and can’t start their engine. I do have some somewhere…but after much searching I decide I have taken them off the boat and they are probably I one of the vehicles back in Ipswich. I am a little intrigued as to how this has happened but we don’t find out. It does make me think about our own setup. We effectively have three distinct areas of batteries: our domestic and service bank (880Ah which covers all use, winches, windlass, navigation etc), a dedicated engine start battery and a dedicated generator start battery. We also have the ability to cross these last two over which means we should be able to start the engine, or generator, even if it’s dedicated battery is flat. I am satisfied that what has happened to the motorboaters shouldn’t happen to us, once again loads of redundancy, especially if I bring the jump leads back! Russ offers to take off his own engine battery and lend it so that the engine can be started, it must be a much simpler task then extricating ours!

At the same time, Maria is chatting up two gentlemen who drift by fishing. She offers them a cup of tea or a beer, (at this time darling!) but they decline as they try to get their rig sorted. Just one of those random events on the water but it tickles Maria.

We have been playing with the rib this weekend and it’s time to get it back up into its place under the davits. We now have our new cover which goes under the rib and over the davits….and there lies the problem. We have to get the cover under the far side of the rib witch we can’t reach except when we are in the rib and then we need to make sure that the cover doesn’t get trapped between the davits and the rib as it is lifted. Maria and I set about our task, sometimes with me climbing onto the davits and also using our boat hook. We have the rib up and I have even got the cover over the engine so we are looking good, as Russ and Sarah gaze on from their inflatable perplexed! Now where are the straps that go under the rib when it is up….of course they are in the rib. Before starting all over again, we decide to see if we can slip them out of the boat and down the outside using the boat hook. I fully expect them to gather nicely in a fold of the cover on the far side but we’ll give it a go. Today we are lucky and I can just see them peaking out of the other side and Maria is able to adeptly grab them with the boat hook. After thirty minutes of messing about we have the cover on and it looks perfect so Paul from Dolphin was absolutely right in that it can be done whilst at anchor. Let’s just say there may have been a couple of doubters over the previous thirty minutes.

We say our goodbyes before heading off and then Mariadz catches someone else out. Sailing boats use seawater to cool the engine down and this comes out from an exhaust pipe above the water line, hence why there is always a splashing of water from the exhaust when the engine is running. If there isn’t then the engine is not being cooled which is a big problem. The Moody 54 has a water separator in the exhaust and the water goes out under the hull. This has led a number of kind and frantic people to wildly gesticulate to us that there is no water coming out. Russ can now add himself to that list, while Mariadz sniggers behind her hand 🙂

We depart late morning recognising that we will be against the tide the whole way but to some extent hoping we can arrive at Ipswich around about high tide and not have to be delayed in the lock at all since it will be open. It is very still as we proceed down the Blackwater and we see more people out early on a bank holiday enjoying the day, including a group of speed boats who have stopped on a beach which is a sand bank exposed by the low tide. They’ll only get a few hours but it looks pretty cool on a scorching day.

It’s still although the wind is due to pick up a little later. So I guess another opportunity to be the camera out and take photos of everyone! I do have more so if anyone recognises themselves give me a shout, I may have more pictures of you i can send.

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We head out of the Blackwater and see a very strange sight, it looks like a flying boat on the horizon but seems to be a fin keeled boat that has been caught on the tide. It seems to be standing proud but looks very strange, I’d love to know what the story was here. It could be an optical illusion and be a bulge keel sitting comfortably on its twin keels but we couldn’t tell from where we were and it would have been far too shallow for Mariadz to get close safely. The wind has picked up a bit and having had a sail jam last time out, we are keen to make sure that the mainsail is back to its normal trouble free self. So we have full main and staysail out as we turn up the wallet and of course the wind is pretty much on the nose. However my wind instruments are showing this a little differently. In fact they are showing the wind to one side and the sail is showing it on the other side. Well that will not do. The great thing about our self tacking staysail is that it gets pushed to an end of the track depending on where the wind is, when it is in the middle the apparent wind is dead centre. I use this to help with the adjustment although the apparent wind shown on my instruments is based on speed through the water rather than speed over ground, the difference should be negligible.  I have adjusted it and we can now see just how close to the wind we are as we travel up the wallet.

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Amarelle left the anchorage after us but has caught us up and goes past, they will definitely catch the lock on free flow. I think Maria normally lets motor boats go when she is racing but she would still like me to sort these sails out and get a little more speed to catch them up….no surprises there then. Or in the result as they disappear over the horizon. We eventually hear them call into the lock, an hour ahead of us.

We are nearing the end of the wallet when the AIS goes mad. A boat off our bow has turned toward us and the technology is telling us that he is on a collision course. We adjust our course to avoid any problems despite clearly having sail up and the other boat is under motor only. The other yacht changes course again and is again going to hit us. Can he not see us trying to get out of the way. I check the AIS which gives me all of the details of the boat in question. Hmmm, Motion. We know a boat called motion and as we get closer we see that it is our friend Mark from B pontoon at Ipswich Haven. We have had a glorious weekend and so now he decides to go out, planning to be down to pyefleet for a few days. You can tell we were concerned, no photos. Oh and he didn’t have any sail up so no point.

At the top of the wallet we turn into medusa and it is like someone has hit the turbo. The wind is now hitting us from the starboard side and Mariadz picks up her skirts and flies. This is good because we haven’t made good time so far and it is looking like we may miss the lock gates, not a major problem but a little annoying.

We are making great progress but still need to keep an eye out as there are a number of lobster pots and these are harder to see when you have all sail out. Still, mmmm, Lobster, maybe we should go to the Alma again soon….

We make our way into the Orwell and shortly after the wind dies. It’s time to take the sails in since they are doing nothing and we don’t want them damaged by flogging. Maria is disappointed that she hasn’t seen any seals or porpoises today and so focuses on seeing cormorant, which is a little easier!

As we arrive at the Orwell bridge we are close to high tide and another sailing vessel is having engine trouble.  Before we can offer assistance another boat has come out of Ipswich to help them. We’ve done this before and it was interesting going through the lock rafted to someone else and then dropping them off on a hammerhead. But someone else will take the honour today.

We pass through the lock on the last of freeflow and as we arrive at our berth our friend and next door neighbour Linda comes out to take a line and help us come in.

It’s the end of another magnificent weekend as we settle down to a still, sunny evening in our home berth.