We are now behind on the clock on our delivery trip to southern Spain and as we know you shouldn’t be pressured by the clock when sailing. However, the weather is starting to come in from the Atlantic and if we don’t leave quite soon we could be stuck in Cascais for some time. Cascais is nice but at over €100 a night, we couldn’t stay for long!

The next part of the trip will take us down the Portuguese Atlantic coast and around cape st Vincent into the algarve. The trip would take nearly 24 hours skirting the coast with the risk of lobster pots to catch our propellor. We decide to do this in two hits having found a safe anchorage along the way.

On our second day in Cascais, we quickly get the boat ready to go. There are a few annoyances as one of the crew releases the spring line stopping Mariadz going forward despite my questioning it. Mariadz hits the pontoon in front of us and leaves a lovely dent in her bow. Funnily enough, I was then told that I had approved it when I absolutely hadn’t. It also wasn’t the other person pulling the boat hard either! The frustration grows when I find that my iPad has been locked and deleted by someone trying to get through its security. The crew deny all knowledge but in all our experience with iPads we have never known one security lock itself without anyone touching it!

Putting these frustrations to one side, and the loss of all of my data and photographs for six months, we head out of the marina at 2:30pm and head down the coast. We are making good progress with a following wind pushing us along at 7-8 knots. As the afternoon turns into evening, we are touch and go as to whether we will reach the anchorage before sunset especially when the wind dies down.

It is an uneventful trip down the coast and as we approach Sines, we can see the big commercial terminal just outside the anchorage with a number of ships waiting like expectant fathers outside the maternity unit. We turn towards the anchorage as the sun slips down and we have the last of the light to guide us in. The anchorage itself is delightful with a wide beach, being groomed as we arrive, protected by two walls, one of which has a small marina tucked behind it. We head directly to the centre of the anchorage away from the other three smaller yachts nearer to the marina. The anchorage is renowned for having a slight swell as the large boats come in and although were only there overnight, we didn’t have any problem and it was very picturesque towards land even if the terminal out to sea was a little less so.

The next morning we are all rested, the shenanigans from the day before have been put behind us and we are ready to move on to Portimao. We have decided to leave at first light since we have 90 miles to go which could take 15 hours and we always like to arrive at new places in daylight, the day before being very close to breaking that rule.

The wind has died down and the bad weather is well to the north of us, we are grateful we left when we did. However, sailing is not an option is 8 knots of wind, at leant to make your destination in daylight. This will be the whole of the morning so we motor down making good progress against our plans. After lunch the wind changes direction and picks up a bit which gives us the opportunity to get some sail up.

Gerald has been down to the furthest tip of the algarve where it meets the west coast and it is a look out point where you can watch the boats rounding the corner. This is an opportunity for Mariadz to unfurl her sails and show off her beauty.

She is a lovely sight under full sail carving through the water and I hope there was someone up there to see. Four hours later we arrive at Portimao at 8pm so shortly before dark and see an incredibly full anchorage. There seem to be a few gaps as we wander around looking for a suitable spot. We decide on one just in from the edge with boats on all sides. It is difficult to come up with where to drop the anchor in these situations. Our general rule is to look at the way the boats are pointing and recognise that their anchors are likely to be in front of them so place ours favouring the stern of another boat over the bow of the boat behind. As we all turn in unison we should find ourselves in a good place. We take two drops of the anchor to get this where we want it and some of the boats are not lining up the same which points to features underwater which are changing the way that the water is flowing. I’m still not 100% happy but decide to keep an eye on it for the next thirty minutes while Maria prepares dinner. One of our neighbours, a Dutchman, is also not happy with us, as is often the case when people anchor anywhere near each other. He finishes off by suggesting that we had better have good insurance, really quite rude. We are settling nicely and everything looks fine but we will need to be careful at the change of tide and I am not convinced I will get the rest I need. After a short time we agree to move to outside of all of the other boats where we will definitely have enough room and can have a solid nights rest. We eat dinner and get our heads down preparing for the long journey tomorrow to Cadiz.

However, this is not before we convince the boys that the water is lovely and warm so they both go for a swim. A couple of laps of the boat and a shower down on the swim platform caps the evening

As described previously, our standard approach is to attach a buoy to our anchor to show us and others the location of our anchor. We have various snubbers to protect the windlass and put on an anchor alarm that constantly monitors your position compared to the anchor to confirm that it hasn’t shifted. We always have a lot of chain out which means we go round in a bigger circle but we never drag our anchor. So it is somewhat of a surprise at 2:30am after an early night to hear the anchor alarm blaring. Usually when this happens it is because I have made the arc that is monitored too small for the amount of chain and the length of the boat. On waking the first check is that we are nowhere near any other boats and we are a good distance away and not dissimilar to when we anchored. I check the anchor watch, reset it and go back to bed after a short while to check that everything is as expected.

On waking the next morning, I come out on deck and we had moved. Although the distance to the boat that I checked last night is the same, we have moved across them by about 25 metres. I also can’t see our anchor buoy and I am reminded of the Dutchman’s comment the previous evening that they used to have one of those and it was stolen. Surely he didn’t get up in the middle of the night, steal ours and trip our anchor accidentally… of course not. As we prepare to depart and the instruments are switched on, Maria points out that we are now in ten metres of water. We wouldn’t usually anchor in that depth despite having more than enough chain to handle it. However, it does explain the buoy problem. Although I have twenty metres of line on this, it is doubled to a length of ten metres which is fine for most of our anchoring. However, now it is slightly under the surface as I find when I pull in the anchor and it pops up. It is good to see it back although our assumption is that someone, probably drunk in the middle of the night, pulled at it thinking it was a a lobster pot, with a 40Kg stainless lobster in obviously. They must have been disappointed to find an anchor and dropped it. It then took twenty metres for the anchor to reset properly. Lucky we had moved or we would have been speaking to the insurers of other boats!

I have discussed the repairs that needed to be done in Vigo elsewhere but this wasn’t our sole focus.

We were lucky to find an incredibly friendly and helpful at Davila Sport in Vigo. Vigo itself is a huge fishing town and so we had to try two of our favourites while we were there: fish and tapas.

Maria had been in the kitchen for a solid few days and quite rightly suggested we eat out. The first night we wandered into town and found a lovely corner bar that did a fantastic selection of tapas (La Bodega de Aguila). We tried a wide variety and they were all excellent so definitely a recommendation from Mariadz. The second night it was agreed we would find a really good fish restaurant and the marina recommended a few places. We booked one of these (Bar Rocio) and of course ate at a standard English time. Our experience has been that the Spanish prefer to eat a little later but we were surprised to be completely alone in the restaurant. We had a good chat to the waiter who suggested a selection of starters. One of which was cuttlefish which had our vet performing an autopsy on the first and refusing to finish the second. The mains were very good too especially the monk fish.

Maria had to go shopping for provisions and was accompanied by Richard and when the marina suggests the shops are walking distance, they may be for keen walkers. Maria found them walking distance there but a much more comfortable taxi drive home! The chandlery was in a similar place which Maria and I also walked, she’s a glutton for punishment. Still another cheap taxi home though. It allowed me to replace the broken block for the downwind rig and get some other essentials.

After a couple of days of mostly successful maintenance, we are ready to leave, albeit without a working autohelm. We have a good forecast of quite strong northerly winds pushing us down the coast towards Lisbon and our destination of Cascais. There is quite a swell which we will be mindful of as we hand steer down but we should have a good sail.

As we set off, we are quickly in the groove. We have decided to go goose wing at the beginning with the main sail out on one side and the head sail out on the other. It has been a standard downwind sailing setup for us on the easy coast and I think we weren’t 100% confident of the twin headsail setup after the recent problems.

By the end of the day, we are making great progress with a 20-25knot wind powering us along at ten knots with the current. The swell is probably 2.5m which we have to surf along as we progress which takes a bit of practice and to start with is quite unnerving, a 25 tonne boat trying to be a surfboard. It is incredibly rewarding though when the wave gently puts you back having surged it for some time. As night draws in and the wind remains strong, we continue our usual practice of reducing sail at night and go to half of the headsail and half of the main.

The next morning, and despite our deliberate slowing down at night, we have covered 170 miles, mostly under sail.

It is lunchtime the next day as we approach Lisbon, we are greeted by dolphins which we have been fortunate to see nearly every day. We are still in downwind sailing mode although there have been a few wind shifts. However, we will need to change to a port tack for the approach to cascais. This is the issue when downwind sailing, at quite strong wind speeds, it seems quite benign because the speed of the boat offsets the wind and makes it feel slightly breezy! Of course when you turn ninety degrees, it is directly across you and you get the full brunt of it. If you happen to have full sail up, it can be quite a shock.

For this reason, we know we will reduce sail to about half sail immediately prior to the turn so that we can have a nice sail on beam reach. Just prior to doing this, there is a sudden wind shift which takes hold of our main and tries to gybe it to the other side of the boat. The preventer for this is on our furthest forward mid cleat which stops the worst happening but the power of the gybe is immense and the preventer bends the stanchion near to the cleat. I am behind the wheel so it is definitely my fault but incredibly frustrating and any mitigating circumstances would sound like excuses! I get the sail back on the side but that is also quite uncomfortable. A lesson learned but the lessons don’t stop there.

You may recall we had all new running rigging and one of the things that John our sailmaker mentioned was that the halyard for the sails may need tightening as the halyard stretches a little. They are dyneema so we aren’t expecting much but we should keep an eye on it. The power of the gybe seems to have pulled at the halyard or maybe the strength of the wind, however, I notice a small few creases that we will need to sort out. To be fair, I haven’t really noticed these minor creases until we decide to bring the sail in and then it jams at the opening because of the creases. We go forward to lift the halyard but that isn’t happening with the amount of power in the sail. So we need to deposit the sail by going head into the wind. We decide that we should do that when in the shelter of the headland since the swell is still quite large and the headland will help us here too. We take down all other sails and turn with just mainsail up. It’s going to be a wild ride for a short period. Mariadz is heeled over a lot and the boys are loving the exhilaration but maria not so much. We know this will only be for a few miles until we get to the lee of the land but it isn’t great.

It seems an age but actually is only a few minutes until the sea starts to settle and the wind starts to reduce. Since we are going into cascais and the wind is in the north, I am thinking that we should wait for the turn towards the marina since we have to head into the wind anyway. Myself and Richard head to the mast to try and fix the problem. Having eased the main a bit we can then tighten up the sail with the halyard and that was all that was required to get the sail in neatly. Quite a bit of stress and distress for a short period for what was a simple fix but I now have a permanent reminder of my mistake with a bent stanchion, fortunately I have a spare.

As we go into the marina, we decide to top up the fuel, we have used quite a lot across Biscay and we are keen to fill up properly at Gibraltar. As we get there, the marina staff help us and take a stern line letting our momentum continue so that we get other lines on. Normally we would go with a mid line but they were insistent. Actually it worked really well and probably better than Our standard approach. Topped up, I pay and check which berth we are to go into. They have allocated us a berth well inside the marina next to a large motor boat that is poking out quite a way. They suggest that we come in astern along the whole length of the pontoon and then bring it in astern. This looks a difficult manoeuvre even without the confidence sapping experience in Plymouth. I suggest we will go in bow first and worry about getting out later. Maria isn’t happy and delegates the driving to me, which doesn’t inspire confidence in the ease of the task at hand. I come in and we are doing fine. The marina staff are waiting to take our lines again and this goes without a hitch. I ask for one of the guys to put the mid-cleat line on to stop me being pushed by the wind onto the motor boat, but that doesn’t happen. Fortunately the marina staff have fashioned this with our second mid cleat but it would have been a lot less nervy if we had done what we normally do. Afterwards I spoke to Maria about this, who had been told by one of them that they would do it and she wasn’t needed. The shame is that Maria is the most competent and knew what was needed to be done. I suggest that if that happens again she should tell me and we will stop that immediately. In the end I am grateful for the help of the marina staff and our bow thruster for keeping Mariadz nice and safe until we could get all lines on. We have a few scars but we are in Cascais, our original end point for the trip across Biscay, albeit a few days later than we hoped.

Our plans are in tatters and the boat is in need of some TLC however we have a new plan and the upside is that we took Ma-Ria to the Rias. Everywhere we go on holiday everyone thinks Maria is a local whether that is the West Indies, India, Portugal, Italy or now Spain.

Having crossed Biscay, we now have our first major sea under our belt. We have sailed for multiple nights getting our rest when we can and although tired we have overcome problems and are generally a happy crew.

At the end of this crossing, we are in a plain Ria, Puerto de currobedo, protected from the South West wind and it is time to celebrate our achievement with a bottle of bubbly. I’m sure it is a lovely place with lovely people but we had been told don’t miss the Rias and this wasn’t quite what we were expecting. There had been quite a lot of weed on our approach and the engine note had changed a few times as the prop and rope cutter dealt with it but Maria is worried and we should check that the prop is clear. The oldest member of our crew, Gerald, is clearly the most virile as he offers to jump in, inspect the prop and then swims around the boat for a while enjoying the somewhat chilly water. One thing we did notice was how clear the water was and we could see our chain for a long way underneath, now that’s different to the muddy east coast!

We have some lovely food, as always. It is a slightly boozy night but we have a relatively short hop to Vigo the next day and we will head off early.

At this time of year in the UK it is getting light at 4:30am and so we agree to get up at 5am. When the time comes, it is still pitch black and we don’t enter or leave unfamiliar anchorages during darkness if it can be avoided. Of course it is also Spanish time, which means we have effectively lost an hour, so we will get away at 6am then….. but we are a long way further south and at 6am it is still very dark with not even a hint of light in the sky. In the end it is 7am before we have enough light to depart.

When we arrived the wind was from the South west and this was a protected anchorage but overnight the wind has moved around to the south east, and now the anchorage is exposed. The previous evening two out of three weather forecasts say this won’t happen, only one suggests it might but this is much later. Not for the first or last time the short term weather forecast has been very wrong. The wind is now Southerly and at 15-20 knots, rIght on the nose, it is going to be an uncomfortable journey.

Having picked up the anchor, I am on the foredeck tidying up the anchor and lines. This includes putting two lines and a bolt in the anchor and chain, we are not having a repeat of a lost anchor with Maria’s new shiny stainless anchor. on the East coast of England, pulling up the anchor normally means pulling up quite a large amount of mud, so this work is messy. Since it is at the beginning of the day, I am normally in clean clothes which are instantly dirty. I get into trouble. Today i take my top off before starting work on the anchor. Gerald is taking us out of the anchorage into the swell and wind and we are bouncing around a lot. So much so that a wave breaks over the bow and a load of water runs over me. So much for that plan of keeping clean and dry, I will have to get changed anyway but at least my t-shirt is ok.

Unfortunately we are making little progress. It is a big sea and we can barely get more than a couple of knots. This won’t work and so we have to find a better anchorage, north facing and protected form the wind and seas. We can the sit out the bad weather and wait for the better weather following it.

Having checked the charts, we have found a lovely north facing cove completely protected from the southerly winds. It is In the ria de arousa, and I am sure maria is hoping it won’t have that effect on me….

It’s been a short but bouncy passage with wind and a sea that we are beating into but as we turn into the ria there is an immediate change partly because everything is now coming from mid ships but also because of some protection from the headland.

After a short time we arrive at our anchorage to find it protected by a large number, maybe 100, mussel rafts. These are about ten metres by five and all linked together completely covering the entrance of the anchorage. I recheck the chart to find a series of microscopic green crosses on the chart, I thought they were local indicators but the whole area is covered in these rafts.

We continue further into the Ria because surely these can’t be everywhere and also shouldn’t Ria Arouca be full of oysters! We finally choose another anchorage which again is protected but has a reasonable route through and is well protected from the weather. When we arrive it looks amazing with a beach bar at one end and a beautiful beach with gorgeous trees behind and a large ominous rock at one end. Three other boats in the anchorage, typically the last spot is adjacent to the huge rock and is quite deep. That wouldn’t normally be a problem but that means more chain and potentially a wider circle for Mariadz to swing within, did I mention there was a large rock? It means that I will be keeping an eye on our position very carefully for the afternoon.

Maria has checked the weather and it is clearing up in the afternoon up in the afternoon. We discuss whether we should push on to Vigo but are worried it will be too dark when we arrive. The place we are in is beautiful too and I am sure that influenced our decision too. The afternoon weather is lovely with glorious sunshine.

Sunset is spectacular and at 10:30pm so we would have been fine for Vigo but ho hum.

Our anchoring on Mariadz has gone well in the past and this is no exception. We are nowhere near the rock as Mariadz hangs off her shiny chain glistening in the sand below.

It’s a lovely evening and we all enjoy it but tomorrow we will definitely go to Vigo and get some repairs done.

The next morning, we are aware of what time dawn is so we don’t get up too early but we are keen to arrive in good time so we set off at first light. Now of course there is no wind so it looks like we will motor all the way.

However there are problems as we start to lift our anchor. The windlass is definitely straining more than usual and the cause is obvious as the anchor comes to the suffice. The large rafts are moored with long lines that go into the anchorage and unfortunately we have hooked one. Here is where our mooring ball comes into its own. Since it is on the roll bar of the anchor it can also be used as a trip for exactly these circumstances. I gather the buoy and tie off the line to a cleat. Then lowering the anchor the buoy line holds the head of the anchor in place while the shaft drops and the thick mooring line slides off the blade of the anchor. I am maybe a little smug that one of our ideas has worked so well in practice 🙂

We are back to our standard watch system with no autohelm, with everyone taking an hour on the wheel. I have timed it so that Maria is there for when we approach the marina.

As we approach, the marina we are told to wait and they will direct us to our berth. Having checked the plans we are sure we know where they will put us but of course we are wrong! We are waiting in the entrance drifting around for five to ten minutes before someone comes to us in a rib and we follow up into the depths of the marina. Maria’s confidence is still low after the problems in Plymouth but I persuade her to keep going and of course she brings her in astern perfectly. We hand the lines to the guy assisting us and we are now settled in. Let’s hope we can be here for just 24 hours and not delay further!

It’s the start of the queens jubilee celebrations and our opportunity to take the extra couple of days on top of our two week holiday to get Mariadz out of Plymouth across Biscay and into the south of Spain ready for a final shot at getting her to Brindisi.

A lot of people who cross Biscay decide to hug the French Atlantic coast which gives them options around safe havens if the weather turns. However, it is shallow here and the Atlantic swell can be much worse here than in the deeper water beyond the continental shelf. Also when the weather is bad a number of these ports are forced to close since the entrances become dangerous. We have decided to take the outside route by heading south west to start with and then heading south to start to go down the western coast of Spain and Portugal. We have also decided that we ideally want to get a lot of the travel done early so we can take it easy as we get further round. To this end, we intend to skip past the Spanish Rias and head to Lisbon as our first stop. This route has the advantage of avoiding the “motorway” or ant trail of cargo ships that follow the same line from the north west tip of Spain to the north west tip of France. However, since we have no idea how well we will all handle the overnight watches, we have discussed bolt holes if we need to get to land and safety sooner. To sail through Biscay you ideally need wind from the north, even is it is has some east or west in it but we don’t want a forecast with any south in it. We are really lucky that the weather window has coincided perfectly with our preferred departure date – clearly someone is smiling on us.

We have decided to get a good nights rest beforehand and leave at about 10:30am which also means we will have a fair tide at the beginning of the journey. This is purely for morale purposes so that you see a large chunk of miles disappear at the beginning of the journey. In the grand scheme of things it will make little difference.

There is little wind so we start by putting the sails up to see how we will do. We are going so slowly, it would take ten days to just get across Biscay, so clearly that won’t be happening! The engine is on and we motorsail to keep our speed up.

Maria has spent a lot of time researching and perfecting the watch system for our trip. We have four people who can stand watch but Maria is keen to make sure that no one is ever on their own especially as we don’t know the real competence of the people who are with us. I will talk about the nigh watch later but by day, we had a watch that lasted two hours with Adam, as skipper, being allocated a single day time watch, 1-3, and the other three covering 9am until 9pm in rotation which nicely rotated the time slots. The thinking here was that the skipper could be called at any time and so a slightly easier watch schedule provided the opportunity to catch up on rest when there were extraordinary circumstances. Which there were! On that first day, we weren’t taking our rest as we should though. We soon discover that le is less of a skipper and more as the maintenance team for Mariadz and I seem to spend most of my down time fixing one thing or another. However, plans never survive first contact with the enemy!

We are all settling into this journey well when we suddenly notice there are spots of blood everywhere, Gerald is bleeding from cutting his foot on something around the deck. So Adam, the skipper, maintenance, medic, is there with some plasters and cleaning the upholstery and deck. A short time later, he does it again, so we need a shoes on deck but not down below rule we think.

As we head into Biscay the water starts to get deeper. We recall when sailing the med years ago, the raymarine depth only registered to about 100M. Will the new equipment be any better? It certainly won’t register the 4000M depth that we will experience.

We have a good day of sailing heading south but realistically still not very far from England since the start of the journey. Nightfall means the start of the night watch. Since we have two crew on board, we have options around the watches but Maria is keen to make sure that we always have two people on watch especially since we know very little about the experience of the two crew. To this end, Maria has put me on for three hours at the beginning and the end. Again the other three alternate between 9-3, 12-6 and 3-9. Everyone gets six hours rest to hopefully make sure they get a good rest. Basically it is six hours on and six hours off although in practice it is three hours on watch, three hours on standby and six hours rest. Maria has given me the best times since it is possible that I could be woken at any time if there are problems.

This also fits in well with feeding the crew. Maria has spent ages preparing meals for the trip and making sure that we had easy, wholesome and great tasting food for our trip. She has planned a menu that means that no meal will be repeated throughout the two weeks we intend to be away. The freezer is organised with military precision and none would dare to interfere.

Gerald and I are on the first watch and as it starts to become twilight, I look to turn down the brightness of our instruments so that we can protect our night vision. Most of these are quite easy and I am merrily pressing buttons when I notice, after doing the autopilot, that the wind instruments are going crazy. There is a fair bit of wind but it is constantly changing direction. I can’t understand this, have I changed the calibration settings. It is a minute or so before I realise that I have inadvertently stopped the autopilot when I was adjusting it and we have done three 360 degree turns. Fortunately it isn’t a bad sea and mariadz hasn’t been noticeable different as it has done it’s turns! We will keep that between ourselves…. Except the track showing our path has three neat little circles in the middle of it!

The watch system seems to work really well although the rolling motion of the ocean means that in order to sleep in our normal bed comfortably you need to sleep across the bed. You are then rocked like a baby in a cradle as opposed to rolled from one side to another.

Apart from my gaff, the night is quiet and after 24 hours we are now 75 miles west of Brest and as Gerald points out 300 miles south of Dublin! Our first day is 168 miles or an average of seven knots which is exactly what we have always planned upon when working out times and distances. To be fair, we are mostly at eight knots during the day but I cut the sail plan and therefore speed during the night for safety and because we have limited people on watch.

The new day starts and we are all still feeling fresh, we are making sure that we are getting our rest during the day although my extensive medical knowledge of plasters is called upon as Gerald once again cuts himself and leaves blood across all of the boat.

Our depth instruments are reading approximately 150m but then as it gets deeper they get confused and start reading 6m. I suspect that this is because we have two different sets of depth instruments, not including the forward facing sonar, so maybe there is some confusion between the two units. Fortunately we can independently switch off the main depth sounder before it starts warning us of shallow water when we are in hundreds of metres. Interestingly the sensor for our navigation works to a much deeper depth and we can see 400m on that one. At some stage we will look into the settings to see if there is something better we can do.

The wind is behind us and blowing a healthy 15 to 20 knots, the sea is also mostly following us with the occasional rogue wave that causes us to roll. It is time for our downwind sailing plan to be deployed. There are a number of options when you want to attempt long distance downwind sailing. We had a cruising chute on our old Dufour that got used twice as I recall. Others use a spinnaker or a parasailor but Mariadz has a Twin headsail setup, this means that our standard head sail is set and then a second headsail is rigged and poled out. The rolling seas mean that even the standard head sail needs to be held in place and this is achieved using the boom as an additional “pole” on Mariadz. We start to get the pole ready and it is seized and won’t disconnect from the stainless bar used to store it. I remember years ago in Ipswich we had suffered with similar corrosion problems locking various bits of our rig and our lovely neighbours Pete and Linda had introduced me to Corrosion X. This is a god send which eats the corrosion and fresh up the movement. I do this on the pole and it is working fine so thank you Pete once again!

After four attempts we have the two sails how we want them with our clever new block on the boom redirecting the sheet for the head sail and the pole doing the same for the second sail. Mariadz looks lovely with these twin wings pulling her forward and we are making great progress hammering along at eight knots. Today is going to be better.

We finally reach the continental shelf where the depth drops from a few hundred metres to many thousand of metres in the space of thirty miles. We are interested to see whether the sea state will change. Most of our experience has been in the English Channel and North Sea which are shallow and result in high waves being very close together. In deeper water the wave period should increase and the motion should be gentler. If we are honest we didn’t notice a huge difference across those few miles but did think that most of the crossing, once we got into deeper waters, was quite a pleasant motion from the sea.

On our trip along the south coast we had eventually been blessed with visits from dolphins. This coincided with the arrival of our Irish vet, Gerald, aka the dolphin whisperer. We were interested to see if his powers would still work when Richard was on board since. On day 2 we discovered that Gerald’s talents were indeed still working although we did find that the Dolphins in the atlantic were shy compared to the playful pods we had experienced in lyme bay. Still it breaks the monotony and is a little bit of excitement for us all. At least until Richard comes on deck and scares them away!

After five hours, the wind is changing and we are looking at our setup for the night. I decide we will change our plan and have something that is easier to manage during the night. As we take down the second head sail, we notice a major problem of chafe on the halyard that has been used to lift the sail. All of the outer cover of our brand new line has been cut and has peeled back revealing a metre of the core. That isn’t good and we will need to understand what causes that so we can fix it. The situation is worse when we pack away the main headsail where we also have a little chafe on the sheet that goes to the boom. The cause of this is obvious when we bring the boom back to the centre of the boat. My new gorgeous and very clever block is a mangled piece of metal. It is clear that whilst the plan to put the block as far back on the mast is standard, it is blocked by another part of our main sheet which means the block can’t deploy properly and is caught on an angle. Over five hours this had worn a groove on the wheel part of the block and mangled the frame. Until we solve these problems, there will be no more twin headsail sailing.

We are now ready for our second set of night watches and are getting into our rhythm. It should also be noted that despite quite a rolly journey, none of us have had any symptoms of seasickness although that may be because of the lack of alcohol or hangovers!

The start of another day, and we are clearly adding a lot to the repair list. It seems pretty standard that, after a long voyage, there are days spent fixing everything that is broken and I fully expect that the definition of cruising as fixing your boat in exotic places will be equally true of Mariadz despite the great start we have of a clear to-do list.

At the start of our third day, we are deep into biscay, the depth is now four and a half kilometres which is mind numbing. It is daylight so let’s get some more sail up and we are soon cruising along at a great pace, tuning the sails as best we can as the wind changes. At the end of our second twenty fours of sailing, we have coincidentally travelled exactly another 168 miles!

As we reach the half way point of our 750 mile initial journey, we are all happy especially as we have seen two whale spouts a long way off. One is quite a bit bigger and higher than the other so we assume it is a mother and calf? I guess one could have been asthmatic though.

It is the back end of the day and I am resting prior to my evening watch when I am suddenly woken by Gerald, it appears the steering is broken. We haven’t even got close to the orca that attack the rudder and we are already disabled! The boat can turn right but like Zoolander can’t turn left. As you get to the mid point and the wheel is straight, it locks.

The steering quadrant is at the bottom of the lazarette so we have to empty the lazarette and investigate. It seems to be working some times but stops at the mid way point in one direction sometimes. We check the steering console to see if there is something catching there but the chain is moving freely. Gerald in the lazarette thinks it is the driving arm of the autopilot. I think he means the sensor arm, which was a problem previously causing the autopilot not to work and poo poo the idea but he means the mechanical arm that drives the steering for the autopilot and to be fair he is right. There seems to be something wrong with the internal mechanics of the Whitlock drive. It isn’t easy to get out and I suspect not something I can fix on the move so we decide to find somewhere closer than Lisbon and hand steer having safely stowed the arm of the Whitlock.

The decision is taken to head into the Spanish Rias to Vigo or bayona to try and get everything fixed.

We will need to change the watch system since the workload is much greater when hand steering rather than letting the boat do the work and just keeping an eye out. We decide that the two people on watch will do alternate hours on the wheel. It is also time for the skipper to step up and not take it easy. I decide to do the first few hours on my own, giving my partner on the first night watch a couple of hours off. That person has an extra hour at the end as they do three hours driving shared with the other person on watch which gains the second person on watch an hour of extra rest before the third person comes on who I relieve early and they get an extra hours rest at the end of their watch.

During the night we pass through the motorway since our new destination is on the other side. Although this looks like playing frogger, there are reasonably sized gaps between the ships and I am able to negotiate a way through without inconveniencing anybody. It must have been difficult for the big ships though seeing a somewhat erratic hand stirred course from us when they are used to a consistent course from everyone they meet. At least we didn’t get called up by name to explain what we were up to! For most of our trip we haven’t been remotely near another vessel with even fishing boats being at least a mile away from us so it is nice to know they are still out there.

Over the night the crew all get some extra rest and now we are getting closer to Spain. It isn’t long before “Land ahoy” and Gerald armed with our hand held compass has found a lighthouse on the horizon. Gerald and lighthouses would become a feature of the trip!

Gerald is again on watch when we are joined by literally a hundred dolphins off our starboard side. The whole sea is churning with jumping dolphins for as far as the eye can see. It is a great site but when Richard appears from down below they all start to disappear. It is certainly a talent!

We are making reasonable progress but will arrive at Vigo too late and in darkness so decide to find an anchorage in the rias protected from the expected south westerly winds. We find one and are the only boat in the little cove but it isn’t a particularly pretty anchorage and certainly not the area of outstanding natural beauty we were expecting,

Anyway, we have negotiated Biscay with only a few wounds to lick and the repairs can soon begin.

This year we will delivering Mariadz to southern Italy and the journey has now well and truly started. Having been in Suffolk Yacht Harbour for most of the last eighteen months, the majority of the boat jobs are now done. There are a few things left to do, most notably the toe rail which we had hoped to have redone perfectly before we left but looks like it will need to be started again unfortunately, more of that in another post.

On a boat there is always a long list of jobs to do and as you will find out over the coming weeks as I catch up on blogs, a lot of these have now been done on mariadz. In fact the usually extensive list has very few items on it!

We left Suffolk yacht harbour at Levington mid-April, a little later than we had hoped due to over-running works and headed to Burnham-on-Crouch. This was to be our base for a couple of weeks, while Maria got to spend some quality time with our granddaughter, Isabella. Since this was our last time in these waters we decided to break up the journey and visit a familiar haunt. Hanford water wasn’t possible due to tides and our need to do a long journey so we decided that Osea Island would be our anchorage for the night before moving onto Burnham.

The sail down the wallet to the top of the river black water was uneventful and we were able to get the sails out but had to keep the engine running due to the lack of wind. This wasn’t too bad since we are trying to get through our first 50 hours on the new engine and want to do this before we attempt the “big” crossing later in the year.

All is going swimingly until we decide to take the sails in. Mariadz has in mast furling which a lot of people swear at rather than swearing by. We have always got on with it and in eight years have not had a sail jam. As part of the refit, we had the in-mast furler completely refurbished. During our test sail we had noticed that the looped line for the furler hadn’t been gripping the jaws of the furler well enough so we had that changed for a thicker line that would grip better. We were somewhat dismayed to find that during the unfurling of the sail, this line had jumped off of the furler completely! I believe I may have been responsible for that. The furler has two modes: ratchet and free. Previously, we had always had the furler on ratchet which basically meant that the sail was always controlled by the furler and we could reef the sail or let more out using the furler and under control. After the refurb, the sail will furl in ratchet mode but seems to be locked for bringing the sail out. I realise this only after the line is under some tension and hence is quite a bit thinner than usual. I suspect this helped to throw the line off the furler. I am able to store the sail by going to the mast with a winch handle and doing it manually, tiring but successful. However, I can’t do that every time! I call Richard at Evolution Rigging and we are both at a loss. Clearly it needs to back but it is a small aperture and I have no idea how I will get the thick line in there – I really hope I don’t need to cut the line at the join of the loop and redo it. The internet is your friend in these situations and I discover that the furler is working exactly as designed, even if that isn’t as good a design as our previously faulty set up allowed. So I know what I have done wrong but not how to fix it, yet.

Osea island is quiet, as you would probably expect for April but it is nice to say goodbye, even if we refrained from singing Rehab from the bow this time.

The next morning, and the pull of Isabella is too much for Maria to resist. We are up and away early and back past Radio Caroline, heading to burnham. I am not letting the furler problem stop us using our new sails so we are flying along to burnham and arrive nice and early.

Prior to arrival, we have been told that we will be on the hammerhead at the entrance – “your usual table, sir?”. That would be lovely, and as we enter the marina, there are even some people there waiting. How kind, they are here to take our lines….. nope, the boat in front of us starts to turn back into us to go onto the hammerhead! I swiftly call out that the harbourmaster has told us to berth there, to be told they are just picking up their friends! Errrr, do you want us to wait here while you do that? Or maybe find somewhere empty to pick them up. The decision is made to take the berth and let the other boat pick them up elsewhere, something they handle very well so clearly know how to handle their boat. Maria demonstrates that she can handle Mariadz as well by “Captain Ron”- ing it. For those who don’t know the film, which is a classic Kurt Russell film, this approach to berthing is basically to aim at the hammerhead at speed and then, at the last minute, throw the wheel over, put her astern and let her drift gently onto the berth. This works well when there is a lot of tide or wind. Maria’s attempt was not far off the film although thankfully her crew knew what she was doing so there was no panic 🙂 well not much…

We are now berthed in Burnham for two weeks before the first of our crew members for Biscay, Richard, comes on board for the start of the trip south to acclimatise himself to the boat and us! Now where’s that list to clear some more items off it!

The second May Bank Holiday was also the second time that Ipswich has hosted the Moody Owners Association.  As much as Maria enjoys the social element of this, she does miss the opportunity to go out for the whole weekend and to go a little further afield. However, she had plans to make sure she did get out for a while.

The event was similar to last year with a barbecue in the old Ipswich Haven Yacht Club followed the next day by a few drinks, nibbles and cakes.  This time there were fewer attendees with a few people popping up even if they couldn’t bring their boat.  This included a new friend with a Moody 54, Rene from Amsterdam, who’s yacht is currently being fixed at Fox’s Marina, having only recently acquired it.  We had spent a bit of time with Rene, who has some great ideas for looking after the Moody.  I suspect there will be more on these in future blogs as we ruthlessly copy his good ideas!  We had been asked to start the Saturday afternoon fun a little earlier than usual so at 3pm we are all set up with some music playing from Maria’s portable karaoke setup.  As always in these situations, you are either running late or ready with loads of time and on this occasion we were sitting around for an hour waiting for anyone to turn up 🙂 At least the weather that Maria ordered has arrived and it is glorious sunshine and warm, if a little breezy.

The event goes very well, with Maria’s salads all being finished, and we all know how much food Maria makes. I’m sure the alcohol we had provided also helps with the atmosphere but a lot of people have also brought their own drinks.  We had asked everyone to bring food for the grills and with two large grills set up, and lovingly cleaned by me for an hour, there is enough room for everyone to do their cooking. Towards the end of the afternoon, the inspiration of using the karaoke setup means that a microphone is available for a few short speeches by the branch captain, Giles, and then by Maria herself….  You can imagine. With a microphone in her hand, Maria kicks off with a couple of lines of “i’m coming out” and then settles into a short thank you speech, remembering to invite everyone over the next morning at 11am for cakes etc.  Fortunately, she keeps the speech quite short.  As the afternoon drifts on, the group start to head back to their boats but a hard core are still drinking and chatting.  A number of these are relatively new members, and with respect to all involved, young members too.  Previously we have attended Cruising Association events where we have been younger than most people’s children and although the Moody age range isn’t that extreme, it is nice to have people of similar ages, or at least as old as we think we are in our heads.  This also includes our friends Sarah and Russ who own a Westerley but have come up for the weekend to see us. Having cleared up, it’s nearly 11pm when we finish but at least the place is mostly tidy as we head back with a few stragglers to Mariadz. The wine and beer are flowing and we agree that Rene should not drive home and also that nobody else should drive him to Fox’s either.  This means setting up our bunk room, since we already have guests in the fore peak. This will be a first but it doesn’t take long to setup the top bunk and convert this room from being a storage area to somewhere someone could sleep. The night doesn’t end there with a few more drinks and eventually it is 1am when we fall in to bed. In fact, Rene decides that rather than sleep in the bunk, he will sleep up in the cockpit, fortunately we are on the quiet side of the dock at Ipswich!

The next day and there are a few sore heads. I have to go back to the yacht club to finish tidying up and leave it in a suitable state.  The yacht club area is offered to berth holders as a courtesy but has to be left in a tidy state or we will lose the privilege.  It’s nearly 11am by the time I have finished and Maria has also been busy getting the boat ready for the descending hoard!  Again we are ready in good time and the first few come on board asking for soft drinks or tea! They have clearly all been Mariadz-ed the previous day!  As more drift over, the beers and wine are out again and the nibbles are quite popular.  After some time, Maria whips out the two Victoria sponges and a carrot cake that she spent all Friday baking, she starts to cut large doorstops of cake whilst cutting off huge chunks for people to take home.  The cakes, made by Maria’s fair hand, are lovely and very popular…..just like her……. Last year, I must have been too polite since, despite my sweet tooth, I didn’t get any cake and none was saved for me – I was going to fall for that again and I am straight in this time.

After the unveiling of the cake, it doesn’t take long for the group to dispel and Maria’s plan to get down the river can be put into action.  We have decided to sail down the river into the westerly wind, it’s gusting a bit but we have decided with our guests on board that we will have a gentle sail down the river.  As we head into the lock it starts to hammer down with rain so we are not convinced that this is a good idea but we will keep on going.  Actually in the lock we see Easily Led 2, who are sporting a just married banner, about time Richard made an honest woman of Janet 😉 but we are really pleased for them as they head out for a mini-moon.

I may have mentioned that we normally sail with the Bimini and most often cockpit tent up which protects us from the elements and for that reason we don’t wear wet weather gear very often.  Of course today, I am on deck in shorts and a t-shirt tidying lines and fenders and after a short period I am soaked. It’s warm in the cockpit tent so I take the shirt off and down below to dry but no point getting another dirty and wet. At least got ice to get my waterproof coat out in case I have to go out in the rain again, maybe I should have thought of that earlier. This is highly amusing for Maria who thinks I look like some kind of porn star with a coat on and no top! To be fair it doesn’t rain for long as we head down river and we are making good progress with the sails up.  Of course since my short isn’t dry yet, I am still sailing topless which is highly amusing to everyone who passes us in full wet weather gear 🙂  

As we pass Wolverstone, there are a number of two seater racing dinghies (I don’t think they were lasers but don’t profess to know all the different types). As is usual in this part of the river, they are all over the place.  They are usually so focused on their racing that they don’t think about how  larger yacht can avoid them.  This isn’t normally a problem and we give them a wide berth but when they are short tacking up river, it can be tricky working out what they are up to.  Today one in particular is tacking right in front of us setting off in one direction and then changing direction abruptly. It wasn’t the most seamless of tacks and their direction of travel seems to be random from one second to another.  They seem completely oblivious to the emergency turns we are doing to avoid them as they aim straight at us. They slip by our port side with no acknowledgement of the problems they have caused.

We have decided to stay out overnight but where is safe to go in a strong westerly?The Stour runs East to West so that wouldn’t be comfortable, not even in Mariadz. We decide to anchor adjacent to Shotley Marsh really close to Felixstowe docks.  It is a little noisy but we will be fine and it is well sheltered from the wind.  But first we will have some fun sailing.  With a westerly wind the best plan is to actually head towards the North Sea for a while where the path is north to south.  This is the same as the last part of the Orwell and I ask Russ if he would like the opportunity to hand steer Mariadz.  He jumps at this and with well-reefed sails we are soon going quickly through the water at over 8 knots.  This causes Sarah some joy since the other year when swimming around her boat she introduced herself to a buoy showing the speed limit of 8 knots adjacent to Osea Island. She may not have been completely sober at the time and was unfeasibly excited.  Since then buoys called 8 knots have been her favourite! Russ gets Mariadz up to 8.5 knots through the water as she cuts her way down river.  The lovely thing about the Moody is the balance she can get on the sails, the wheel feels very connected and the steering is light even in a strong wind. Russ is loving it.

As we make the turn towards Harwich everything slows down as the wind drifts round to the starboard quarter. The wind hasn’t dropped but the perception has because now we are travelling in the same direction as the wind so it is not as fast across the deck.  This can be quite unnerving especially when you turn around when the wind changes.  It can be worrying to feel hat the wind has increased by around fifteen knots, which is quite a stiff breeze, just by changing your course.  Anyway the north-south section of the Orwell has whetted our appetites and we decide we will do a similar section out of the harbour. It’s time for Sarah to take the wheel as we turn from Harwich harbour onto the same course as Russ had negotiated down the river.  The speed starts to build and there is a little more wind. Eight knots shoots by and Sarah is starting to look a bit nervous as the speed rises through the eights and over nine knots.  We get to 9.3 knots before Maria decides enough is enough and we should slow down.  That’s pretty good especially against the tide.  We all decide that it must have been 9.35 knots which makes everyone happy except Russ who is itching to have another go and beat the new “record”.  I’m sure with a following tide it would have been over ten, eh Sarah……

Ok it’s time to turn around and head back to our selected anchorage. Maria has decided that, with the wind strengthening, I will take in a little sail so there is no opportunity to beat our record for the day but it is still a really pleasant fast sail back into the harbour.  As we turn into the harbour to head towards the Orwell, we come up quite tight to the wind.  As mentioned, at any speed that is more uncomfortable than running with the wind with the faster wind speeds across the deck.  In preparation for this and knowing we will shortly be anchoring, I have reefed in more sail before we make the turn.

This coincides with a noticeable drop in the wind, probably caused by the wind shadow from the land. So we are travelling through Harwich Harbour at a slow pace but we have had our fun so it is fine. We approach the area where the rivers split, we need to cross the river Stour entrance to head down the Orwell.  Suddenly, there is a call from the cargo ship following us.  Normally, we steer well clear of anything on the water even if we are within our rights to hold course.  It just seems a safer way to go since it is everyone’s responsibility to avoid a collision and there is no “in the right” when your boat is damaged! Therefore in ten years of sailing, and we sail a fair bit, I don’t think we have ever been called up by another boat in this way.  That changes today as the cargo ship, travelling somewhat faster than us, asks us our intentions. As we are sorting ourselves out to make sure we are not in anyone’s way, the harbourmaster also comes on the radio.  Maria is able to explain that we are going up the Orwell at the same time that they notice our route.  They can then turn behind us to head down the Stour with no problems but it is a reminder that you always need to look behind since we should have sorted this out a lot earlier, in our defence, more ships head up the Orwell but it is a reminder that we need to keep alert.

As mentioned we have decided to anchor near Shotley where we have tried, and failed, before. I have found a spot out of the channel and marked it on the chart and as we approach this spot seems to be exactly where a small motorboat is anchored and fishing,  we quickly adjust our views and Maria has found a new spot, which is away from the channel and not too close to the shore.  When sailing, Maria and I hardly ever have a cross word and actually never when we are on our own. There may have been a slight “difference of opinion” when I asked for depth at admittedly high tide to be told we were in 10 metres of water.  Generally, we like to have a metre or two under the keel at low water but this is excessive. I point out that we normally have it a little shallower than that…. once or twice. Of course I hadn’t thought of checking the depth prior to starting to drop the anchor.  I gently suggest that we sort it out and go closer to the land.  The second or third time I suggest this is enough for a slightly snappy reply 🙂 We “agree” to bring the anchor up, which is good since I had forgotten to attach our marker buoy to it anyway, so at least on the second attempt I can remember to follow our anchor routine properly.  We get a bit closer to land, which doesn’t feel right but the depth is fine as we swing round after deploying the anchor.

A few stern words between Maria and I don’t last very long, which I guess is lucky in a boat where you can’t really get away from each other, and we are relaxed as we watch a spectacular sunset.

It is another lovely dinner from Maria but we are all quite jaded from the night before and suspect we will be in bed by 9pm…. yeah right. By 8:15, it is looking like 9pm is a bit ambitious as we sit in the cockpit chatting and, unusually, without music playing. Having eaten, we are all noticeably starting to wake up though, and that is before we start on the port. A little bit more port and some of the gathering are wondering why Clyde is always moaning for cat treats. They must be really tasty…..OMG,  Nooooooooooooo. Russ, Sarah and Maria all try the Royal Canine cat biscuits. These are apparently quite nice but you wouldn’t catch me trying them, not least of all because I couldn’t deny the cats! These greasy “yummy” treats are washed down with a little more port before Sarah informs us that she was “Cleaning my teeth with my tongue and a tiny bit of cat treat came out….”, yum, yum.  It’s clearly getting later and we are starting to run out of port so it’s time for a great nights sleep, nicely sheltered from the wind.  Well it can’t be later than 9pm, 10pm, 11pm, not 1:30am! Oh dear.

The next morning we are up at a reasonable time to start the sail back up the river to Ipswich.  Russ is confident that he will beat Sarah’s record but if this is possible it will be in that first section of the river which goes North so that the Westerly wind is perfectly positioned. You can see lots of sail boats are having fun in the river today so after a quick breakfast, we pack up and are ready to sail immediately.

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It’s a good wind but I still have a flea in my ear from Maria for having too much sail up yesterday so we are well reefed which means no faster than 8 knots – at least Sarah will be happy. Russ is not so happy but I am more scared of Maria than I am of him – sorry, mate 🙂

We make the turn at Suffolk Yacht Harbour, after which the Orwell snakes approximately North West, not ideal in a Westerly wind and we will be tacking most of the way home.  Maria and I rarely do this but Russ is keen and we actually start off the journey by tacking the headsail with the stay sail and main both out too!  This is quite difficult since getting the head sail around the stay sail takes time and effort.  It does give a photo opportunity as our friends Christian and Elizabeth are on a buoy down the river and see us tacking so that’s good. You don’t get too many pictures of your own boat under sail.

After a while, Maria gets bored of winching this in and we are making less progress in a wind that is not as strong as it had been the previous day.  We bring in the headsail which means Russ can tack without anyone doing any work, that’ll make the girls happier.

We are able to sail all the way back home so we feel accomplished and have done quite a bit in a short weekend. Maria brings Mariadz into her home berth with no fuss and our friends can head home after a great weekend!

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a sad time of year for Maria’s family since it combines the anniversaries of the funeral of her father, Chris, and the death of her younger sister, Natalie. The later was only last year so it is still very fresh in people’s minds. So we decided that we would spend some time with Maria’s step mum on the anniversary, Friday, and hopefully get some time over the weekend on the boat, something that Chris and Natalie would both have loved.

Weather-wise the weekend was to start quite breezy but this would die down with potential occasional showers.  I had booked the Friday off work so that there would be no distractions on the day and so we decided that we would head to Harwich on the Thursday evening once I had finished work.  This would mean a 7pm departure with a couple of hours to get to Half-penny pier.  In preparation, Maria spoke to Nick the harbourmaster and checked that the outside of the pier, which is the only spot we can go, was clear and he confirmed that there was nothing there and nothing expected.  I have to say that all of the harbour masters at Half-penny pier have been really good to us whenever we have been there.  They’re really friendly and want to help although I believe that the RNLI station may have been told to rename our boat “likely call”…

I arrive back from work at about 6:45pm and Maria has the boat ready.  There is a strong North-Easterly wind blowing at 15-20 knots as we prepare to leave.  We are untied and as Maria slowly inches Mariadz out of her berth, it seems particularly gusty.  The wind is blowing us off the pontoon which is great but also closer to our neighbours a few feet away.  It is the first test of the new bow thruster and everything works fine as Maria controls the bow and exits the berth.  We will need to go into the lock to get down the river and the water level is high, which also means we are a little exposed to the wind as we enter the lock.  Once again we are being blown off the pontoon as I call down the distance to the pontoon from the hull.  At 50cm, I step off, one never jumps…. ;), I have a mid cleat line in my hand. I am able to get this attached but as I reach back for the standard second line, the aft line, it is not in reach. I ask Maria to tick over forward and steer away from the pontoon which should point the bow out, move Mariadz forward and with the mid line holding her bring the stern into reach.  A quick bust of bow thruster speeds this up and I am able to get the aft line on, tighten up the mid line and stroll forward with the bow line in the knowledge that Maria can control this with the bow thruster anyway.  We are tied up even if it was a little more exciting than normal 🙂 . The other thing we have done is successfully tested the bow thruster, which had already been done in the berth before setting off but there is nothing like a real test.  This whole process reminds Maria why she likes to have the bow thruster available.

We start to head down the river after a cheery wave from the lock keeper.  Maria phones up half-penny pier to reconfirm and we are fine.  Nick asks us to phone him after we arrive just to confirm that we are there safely – now that’s service…or maybe he’s worried about whether we will successfully make it!  We have some sail up although it is gusty and we are doing over 7 knots down the river. Unfortunately the wind picks up and gets more gusty which just makes the journey uncomfortable so before long we have reduced sail a little.

As we round the turn to Felixstowe, I have booked us for some food at the Thai up at the Quay, our favourite Thai restaurant.  As we approach half-penny, we can see it is clear and the wind is blowing down the pontoon so we will turn Mariadz around and face Felixstowe rather than down river.  After the experience at Ramsgate, I am taking no chances and I rig most of our nine fenders on the starboard side and at the right height but I needn’t have worried.

Maria approaches the pontoon at a sensible speed and the first thing she has to do is a ninety degree turn in a tight spot, adjust for the flow of water and then flick the bow out using the rudder as Mariadz settles against the pontoon and I step off to start tying her off – Mariadz not Maria! Parked like a boss though! Interestingly, Maria didn’t use the bow thruster at all.  It should be said that Maria doesn’t over use the bow thruster normally but she has used it markedly less since its replacement which means more concentration beforehand to get the boat in the right position rather than relying on a correction.  It’s impressively done with no fuss whatsoever.  I decide to move Mariadz back a little so that we leave some space at the front of the pier but it seems that we will be alone here this evening.  It’s 8:50pm and we have ten minutes to retrieve the cats – you know Clyde has jumped off as soon as we touched land, shut the boat down and get to the restaurant.

We are big fans of Thai up at the Quay, it’s a family run business which is normally quite busy, to the extent that probably 50% of the time we can’t get in last minute like this.  Today we are in luck. We take some recommendations for food, the staff always know what’s best, and our faith in them is justified as the food is excellent.   The service is excellent too, with the son being our main person today and being both efficient and friendly.

Now the problem that Maria and I have on holiday is that we are normally quite happy when it starts and the first evening is a bit of a “celebration”…. this normally means a late night and some alcohol resulting in sore heads the next morning.  It doesn’t seem to matter if this is a fortnight away, a long weekend or even, sometimes, a normal weekend away! Tonight is no exception but at least our plans for Friday are to arrive at Jean’s at lunchtime so we have some time to get ourselves sorted.

We have brought food with us for lunch with Jean, a lovely fish platter but without oysters this time, not sure she really enjoyed them last time. We have some drink with us too so we can toast Chris and Natalie and before long we are in the taxi to Dovercourt. We spend the afternoon with Jean and have a great time although I am asked to demonstrate my IT skills by fixing her computer and setting up a new video player on the computer, no rest for the wicked! Also, they probably don’t know that there are loads of people who do this where I work so I don’t get my hands dirty normally.

My computer jobs done and after a really nice afternoon, it is time for us to return to Mariadz.  The cutoff point for half-penny pier is 4pm prior to which, it is free to moor. On our return to the boat, the wind is still blowing hard but all of the forecasts confirm that this will drop over the weekend so we plan to anchor down the Stour for a couple of days. We expect the wind and tide to pull us off the pier quite nicely but just in case we are set up to spring off the bow as usual.  As the mooring lines are removed, Mariadz gently drifts off the pier so I loosen the last bow spring line and we are ready to go.  Martin, our yachtmaster instructor, caught us out a few years ago when he was beside the Orwell as we sailed down.  He spotted that we had the fenders laid out on deck rather than tidied away. When we had the granny bars, or mast pulpits, fitted we decided that this would make a safe storage location for our fenders. Not least of all because if we needed to access the mast, we could easily move the two inside fenders around so that the bars could serve their true purpose.  It does reduce visability a little from within the cockpit but works for us.  Another change I have made when putting out the fenders is to tie them at the bottom of the stanchions and then run the line to the top of the stanchion to tie the knot.  This puts the pressure point for the fender at the base of the stanchion, it’s strongest point, and hopefully avoids us bending stanchions if a fender gets caught as we approach a dock.  However, these two decisions mean that it takes longer for me to stow the lines and fenders after we come away from the pier. We are a fair way down the river Stour, as I rejoin Maria having tidied everything up.  There’s some wind but we have decided since we are going less than two miles, there is no point in packing up the boat to sail and getting the sails out just to put them away again quite quickly. As we approach, Maria is checking the chart for where to go and sees a large anchor sign.  We both momentarily forget that this is a marker we put down in the raymarine plotter to signify a good spot. Normally, there are other boats here so it is nice to go to one of our favourite spots on the edge of the bay but away from the channel. The anchor routine is the same as always and we are settled down with the anchor alarm on but also having checked transits that will point to any problems of us moving.  That isn’t normally a problem but better safe than sorry. It is still quite windy as we settle down for the evening but during the night this dies down.

We wake the next morning to find ourselves in a mill pond, there is barely a ripple on the River Stour.  It’s gonna be a lovely chilling day and the cats are particularly ready for it as they rest and rest some more.

Maria has decided that today is a fishing day having bought rag worms during the week and fresh from her recent success of catching three small sea bass. She will need a bucket however which is when I find that the builders bucket and the two soft plastic buckets have all got holes in 😦 . The builders bucket is particularly galling since I have had that for several years, with it’s rusty handle, and never expected my old faithful to fail me.  It means that Maria’s source of water is an old washing up bowl rapidly filled from a leaking bucket. I also need to ask Alexa to add a bucket to the shopping list. I guess it is just all part of the constant refresh cycle on a sailing boat, nothing ever stays fixed for long.

Maria is fishing all day and constantly changing her bait as the combination of weeds, crabs and fast running water remove the worms from her hooks.  This is despite reverting to the internet half way through the day for another guaranteed way of baiting your line.

Still Maria is happy and that improves further after I shuck some oysters for lunch, that also explains why Jean didn’t get any!

Its late afternoon in the middle of May and that would mean the FA cup final which, this year, has my team, Manchester City, playing.  The TV is set up in the cockpit and I have checked the aerial adjustment to make sure that I will not have the same problems of not watching the game that I suffered for most of the last day of the premiership! The game is a nervy affair to start with but this quickly goes as City continue to score goals and approach a record final victory.  That isn’t bad, especially when you consider that the last time they played a similar placed team at this stage they got beat!  The football result helps my good mood as we realise that the whole day has gone and we have been really lazy and done nothing all day!

The evening is clear and still.  The river is like a mirror which only worries Maria since the first time Bonnie ever jumped off the boat was when conditions were like this.  She was young at the time and I think she learnt her lesson but it doesn’t stop Maria worrying. Clyde is also being cheeky, he knows the rule of “no toes on the toe rail” and has heard it often but it doesn’t stop him leaning over the side hypnotised by the water.

One day we will put up “brat nets” as a safety precaution and they are already acquired and waiting to be fitted.  We are not sure we will like the aesthetics and want to leave it til as late as possible. In the interim, we always hang a couple of covered fenders off the aft quarters of the boat. At anchor, we are always facing the tide so if they did fall in they would be pulled backwards towards the stern.  We are hoping that should the unthinkable happen, they would be able to grab the fender and climb their way back up to safety.  The alternative is of course that Maria would immediately dive in after them, while I worked out a way to save everyone!

Another good nights sleep on a flat calm river heralds another day when we will need to up anchor and return home. As we come up on deck, I look at the cockpit tent to see a mass of bird droppings.  These aren’t little ones either, as the boat is covered in elephant sized droppings.  That means we will have to give the boat a good wash down today but at least the weather is nice,

We’re contemplating leaving so that we can get a good push from the tide up the Orwell when one of our friends, John from Brigand, pops over in his jet rib from his catamaran deep in Holbrook Bay. We invite him on for a drink and I suggest to Maria that she lower the swim platform for him.  Now we haven’t used this since last year, and having told Maria which switch to use, we are both confused as the swim platform doesn’t move.  That is until we see that Maria is happily switching the lights on and off…. of course, the swim platform is controlled from the steering binnacle not the stern of the boat.  When pressing the correct button, the platform goes down easily which is a relief.  Over a cup of Tea, which is very refined for us, John gives us the benefit of his local knowledge by explaining where a channel is in the Bay that would allow us to come in closer to shore.  Definitely one to be explored next time we are down.

John leaves to put Brigand onto the mud to change anodes and we are set to head back up river and home. Retrieving the anchor is no problem although clearing the anchor buoy takes some effort – it is unbelievable how much weed goes through this river!  Our new weed clearing technique of leaving ten metres of chain down so that the buoy is adjacent to the boat for cleaning, works a treat though. We have remembered to take down the anchor ball up in the rigging and proceed down the river to the gentle buzzing of the anchor alarm telling us we are dragging our anchor at six knots…. why do I always forget to switch that off? This can be seen perfectly on the anchor track in the picture.

We’re fighting the tide and a light wind with some very light rain up the Stour which slows us down but we know this will all change when we hit the Orwell. There isn’t much wind so again and we will do this under power dodging anything sailing down the river.  Despite the light drizzle, I get the opportunity to take boat photos for the first time this year so we have some pictures of other boats on the Orwell.

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We’re closing on high tide but it looks like we will miss the lock being open by ten minutes but at least we won’t be in there for long. As we wait in the lock, another couple have come in and one of them catches the same train as me in the mornings from Ipswich station.  Not next week though as he is away on holiday on the boat and I try to hide my jealousy. I must have a recognisable face though 🙂 Once again, Maria gets Mariadz into the berth with the minimum of fuss and it isn’t long before our standard post-voyage routine is done and Mariadz is in her usual position with shore power.

This time, though, she is sitting there looking expectant, if that is possible, because SOMEONE has to clean her up!  That, as you can imagine, is a blue job!  I don’t mind though as she looks gleaming at the end of it.

 

It has been a tradition over the last ten years (wow ten years already!) that Mariadz starts her summer season at Easter.  There was memorably one Easter when we were sailing in company with Easily Led on a still, scorching Easter. Since then the weather hasn’t been quite so good, especially when Easter has been early.

So with a late Easter this year, we were planning on how to spend it and as it got closer, it seemed the weather was going to smile on us. The boat hadn’t been out of the water for over a year and so before our season started, there was some essential maintenance that needed doing. This was all planned and booked months in advance to be done a few weeks prior to Easter to avoid any risks.  Unfortunately, Ipswich Haven has limited large cradles and in fact because of the number of boats out of the water long term, they only have one cradle available for large boats.  One of our friends decided to come out the week before us, and booked for three weeks….. that was cutting it tight.  Fortunately, they were back in time for our scheduled three day maintenance window.  Of course the late reschedule meant that the people that were going to help us with the work on the boat weren’t available, so we were late coming back into the water but more on that in another blog.  We made it in time, which is the important thing.  So where to go…. we had previously spoken about returning to the North Kent coast, maybe Chatham, the creeks or Ramsgate so with some strong winds predicted for the start of the weekend, we decided to start in Ramsgate.  We will see where it goes from there.

I had some work to do which required some quiet time, two reports to write, so had decided to work from home the Thursday before Easter.  This meant that Maria decided that we could sail to Ramsgate on the Thursday while I worked, she does like to start the weekends as early as possible.  This, of course, works fine unless I have a call to do and of course I had a call to do at exactly the time we would be coming into Ramsgate! We would have to work that out but it really depended on how well we were doing.  We agreed that we would need to go early with the tide so that it didn’t mess up the day but unfortunately I was late back on the Wednesday night and so barely had time to do anything except the last bit of getting the boat prepped and fall into bed, ready for a 4am start! I hadn’t checked the engine, which isn’t normally a problem.  Although we do these before any long journey, there seems to be little difference in oil or coolant levels and I rarely have to tighten up the belts. So that shouldn’t be a problem…

So we are up at 4am, it’s dark. Pre-engine checks show we are low on oil…..we top it up and check coolant levels which are a little low but fine.  I have spare coolant anyway so that shouldn’t be a problem.  The loss of some oil is something we will need to look into though.  Unfortunately, this delays us until nearly 5am and with a low tide we are another 30 minutes in the lock waiting for the levels to balance out.  This time we have decided to take the “inside” route down black deep to fisherman’s gat and then south-ish from there to Ramsgate.  The wind is in a favourable north easterly direction and with a good tide, we should take about six hours from our standard passage start point of the langard buoy outside of Harwich. It is about 43Nm and we would normally expect this to be about six hours which puts it right in the middle of my only work call scheduled at lunchtime. Typical.  We make reasonable progress down the river, out of Harwich and through the Medusa channel.  We are always incredibly observant here because we have seen fishing nets across the channel as well as a minefield of lobster pots which could trip us up and ruin our weekend!  This time everything is fine and we get to the top of Black Deep.  At this stage, we will surf with the fast running tide and wind so we will fly down the channel. So far a really uneventful trip with nothing to report apart from the large tanker following us down the Deep which caused us to slightly adjust our course to avoid causing them any trouble. We are making good time and can tell the difference a clean hull is making to Mariadz’s speed, compared to the end of last season when she sported a hula hula skirt of speed-sapping weed. I am busy working away and Maria has done her job hunt and gets the needle and cotton out to repair our fender covers! Anyone that knows Maria will recognise a bored Maria right there! Maria does a fantastic job with the fenders, repairing holes and stitching in new elastic to neaten them up as I finish the first of my reports.  Now to send it in before the deadline…. but we are several miles offshore and I have no mobile signal. Ah, I hadn’t accounted for that! But there is a silver lining since I have an IPad from 3, my personal phone on O2, a work phone on Vodaphone and a boat Mifi on EE – one of them has to work ;).  I achieve the deadline and we have turned south on approach to the Kent coast as it gets to midday. That means arrival outside of Ramsgate in the middle of my call as feared.  So how to slow us down….Maria had been keen to arrive early at Ramsgate to get a good spot and chill for the afternoon after an early start. This meant at this time we were motor sailing so I can slow us down a bit, and with a slight adjustment of course to give us a longer approach to Ramsgate, I can get the call done before we have to get busy.

In the end my work call finishes a little early and so I have lots of time to get the boat ready for the entrance.  Before I do though, we have a visitor. A little bird decides to take a rest on Mariadz about four miles offshore.  Maria is so confident of my knowledge of these things that she asks me what it is called, after a swift check I decide that it is Samuel which I found highly quite amusing, but Maria not so much. We eventually find out that it is a Siskin from the north, maybe trying to get back there for the summer and maybe a bit upset that I am going the wrong way. Obviously not as upset as it will be if Bonnie or Clyde wake up and notice it there.  It sticks with us for about 20 minutes while the cats sleep.

The approach to Ramsgate can get a bit lumpy in the confused seas just outside the entrance.  This can mean putting on fenders and lines is a bit of a challenge akin to a bucking bronco ride.  The water is cold too. However, we are ready early so I can get the fenders on now, perfect! Except…. I usually adjust the fenders by touching the water, lifting a little tying off.  This works really well and makes sure that the fender is perfectly set for the pontoon. The problem with doing this in a one metre swell is that “touching the water” is not quite as low as usual.  And I didn’t notice!  We are set for our approach, have called into the port to get permission to go through the outer harbour to the marina area and are on approach.  Since we are at a good time, we have the choice of the outer long pontoon, which is perfect for Mariadz and where we normally go.  This did need a little persuasion though to stop us being put into the tight area of the marina (at least tight for a 54 foot plus davits yacht!). We always do the turn in the harbour ( avoiding the submerged sand back) so that we are facing the entrance which makes the stay more comfortable.  As we approach, we realise that the wind is quite strong and north Easterly, blowing us onto the pontoon as it always does whenever we are in Ramsgate. We’re all set to dock, with our fenders a little high, as Maria swings Mariadz round to approach the long linear pontoon at the end closest to town. The wind is strong and Maria touches the pontoon about ten metres ahead of where we need to end up.  So we will need to move the boat backwards.  Now normally this wouldn’t be a problem but there is a strong wind blowing us onto the pontoon and I may have mentioned the fenders not being optimally positioned.  Maria tries to go straight astern and of course this squeezes the fenders against the pontoon.  Being set too high they start to pop up.  Now normally in this position, Maria is able to get Mariadz pretty much moving sideways off the pontoon.  In forward, she turns into the pontoon which kicks the stern out and then uses the 10hp bow thruster to push the bow off the pontoon. In astern of course, the wheel is reversed…. you need to turn away from the pontoon and still use the bow thruster to stop the bow hitting the pontoon.  This is our first trip out this year so we are a little rusty and it takes a few minutes for us to get this right.  In which time our beautifully polished hull is rubbing against the pontoon, causing some scuff marks. I have told Maria and, since she can’t see it, she is fearing the worst. Actually it’s not too bad and will clean up fine but neither Maria or I are looking forward to telling Terry, our GRP expert, who did all that fine work a week ago!

This is an opportunity for us to get our pop up steps out which makes the step down to the pontoon so much easier.  We’re now set up and I have a few hours of work to do writing reports and it is warm in the cockpit tent despite the strong, cold winds outside.

Maria settles down to start planning the weekend in detail (I.e. has a drink), thinks of a few ideas for food and since we will be here a couple of days, maybe some touristy stuff. We’re sure that Ramsgate has put its prices up since it is nearly fifty pounds a night for Mariadz – no wonder the marina is empty!  I finish work and we have an early evening on the boat chilling listening to music, watching TV and playing with the cats. Dinner will be a return to our favourite Thai up in the arches, the Thai Orchid, which is excellent as always.  There is some lovely food and a few drinks so the evening doesn’t finish early 🙂

It’s Good Friday and time for the holiday to start properly but as always with Maria on the first night away, there are a couple of sore heads the next morning so it isn’t an early start. We take a look at the top ten tourist attractions of Ramsgate, an eclectic mix to say the least….. the marina is right up there, as is the sailors church right next to the marina and the maritime museum next to the marina! It’s not going to be a long walk! Maria has already discounted the mile and a half stroll to the next bay to see the Viking ship.  In one respect, I am disappointed but you know you will have walked for thirty minutes to see some wood strapped together on a concrete plinth which could be quite underwhelming. I hasten to add that we haven’t seen this so I could be doing it a huge disservice. One day we will go and probably be really pleasantly surprised – but not this weekend.  There are also the tunnels which have history from the war which could be interesting, if we can find the entrance….but I guess the hidden entrance is why they were useful during the war! It’s early afternoon and we decide that some food is in order before we get going, but neither of us can work out what to do.  We wander round the front seeking inspiration.  There are a couple of pubs for a great hangover cure like sausage, chips and beans.  There are some good seafood places, that’s a maybe, and of course the really nice Italian opposite the pier that we like so much.  We keep wandering around until we finally stroll into Little Ships, this used to be a bar until six months ago and the menu looks quite good. As we walk in a large bowl of mussels is being delivered to one of the tables, that looks excellent.  There’s also salt and pepper squid which is also a favourite so that is the starters sorted.  There’s a good selection of mains, Maria is thinking of the fish and chips while I look at the seafood pasta.  There is also a Chicken Kiev, now when was the last time I had one of those?  The decision is made more difficult when they tell us that their fish supplier is late and the last of the mussels has gone out, we missed it by ten minutes!  We make our choices but there is no rush and we are enjoying sitting there and chatting. After our oysters, didn’t I mention those, the starters are amazing. The chef is really talented.  We decide to have a bottle of wine with our dinner but I can’t choose so I ask if it is possible to try a couple before making a final decision. The management bring over a couple of small(ish) glasses of wine, as Maria start to open a conversation with the table next to us – doesn’t sound like Maria, does it? I try the more expensive one first which is very light and crisp, definitely drinkable.  The lighter coloured second wine is the house white.  The first sip is enough, this wine is dangerous and should come with a health warning, far too drinkable!  We have decided to go with this, living life on the edge. We are now having a lovely chat with the group next to us since Maria broke the ice. They have just come from a cruise, where they are used to striking up conversations with strangers, so this is no different.  Food wise, we have gone with the fish and chips and a Chicken Kiev.  I have to say it is probably the best fish I have had, very thin crispy batter, succulent fish and the thick cut chips are gorgeous.  It’s been a relaxing lunch break but it is now beyond 4pm by the time we clear out.  So off to the museum which we soon find closes at 4:30pm…oops, they are closing up and so we will have to do that another time.  Not before the lovely lady gives us a 15 minute history lesson on the difference between Greenwich Mean Time and Ramsgate time, sounds like an excuse to be late to me! So not much touristy stuff at all for us today.  Having had our fill at lunchtime, the evening will be a quiet affair where we will sit in the cockpit and watch TV. Quite relaxing actually as I nod off! We will also need to plan the rest of the weekend since Maria has been unable to make a decision.  We consider our options. We actually really like Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey and the creeks nearby, it’s a proper old maritime town and we know some people don’t like it, but we have only had good experiences there and the people who run the dock have been really friendly. We could go further down the river to Chatham, and check the historic dockyard since we haven’t done that before.  We could pop up to the Crouch and stay at Burnham which has always been a nice spot. There is also of course an anchorage, which is probably our preference having been marina bound all winter and the last few days. So Osea, Pyefleet, Hamford Water, the Deben or the Stour.  The wind is still blowing a fresh N going NE and this maybe even going easterly as the weekend goes on.  This will mean an unpleasant trip back on Monday into the wind from Chatham or Burnham. Based on the strength and direction of the wind, we decide to go closer to home and stay in the Stour.  Although if the wind goes Easterly, it may be a little bumpy, Mariadz will be more than comfortable riding this out.

Our standard route home from Ramsgate would be to head North to the Fisherman’s Gat and then North East through the Deep before turning North again to Harwich.  The expected wind would be on the nose for the whole trip which would be slow and mean no sailing.  There are a number of sandbanks in the Thames Estuary which splay out like fingers in an open hand and point north easterly.  As mentioned our normal routing is to cut across one of these and then go up the gap between two sand bank fingers.  The alternative is to go around the outside of the finger tips.  This is not something we have done before and this may allow us to sail close to the wind but at least at a faster and more comfortable pace.  Although this route is slightly longer, I suspect today it will be faster.

The Northerly is still blowing us onto the pontoon and so we can’t use our usual method of coming off the pontoon sideways with an angled rudder to kick the stern off and the bow thruster to move the bow .  This would also be complicated by a border patrol vessel which is moored in front of us and is twice our beam so blocks the route outquite a bit.  We can’t just steer off the pontoon or spring off the stern because of the overhang of the davits, rib and solar panels which would go three to four feet over the pontoon.  So it will be springing off the bow as usual then.  We are becoming quite experienced at this as I tie four fenders to the bow and a line from the bow to a cleat adjacent to our mid ships on the pontoon.  Maria has checked in with port control and we are good to go.  As I take the other normal mooring lines off, Mariadz is already starting to move her stern off the pontoon.  Maria turns the wheel into the pontoon and in tickover eases the bow in and onto the fenders as the stern slowly moves away from the pontoon.  With Mariadz at about 45 degrees to the pontoon, Maria straightens the wheel and slips into astern. I loosen the spring line and a quick burst of the bow thruster pushes the bow even more off the pontoon and starts to straighten Mariadz. We are now perfectly positioned parallel to the pontoon and ready to go as I retrieve the lines and put away the fenders.  As we leave, another larger border patrol vessel, Searcher, is also readying to leave.  Everything is stowed before we come out of the harbour and before we hit the rough patch of water outside of Ramsgate which throws us around.  The weather is fine, if a little cold, and in the distance we can see another warship in the channel, probably a frigate. So with that and Searcher behind us, we are feeling very safe! As we turn North East to our first waypoint, all hell breaks loose on the AIS. There is a fast moving vessel on a collision course about a mile away. This is an RNLI lifeboat returning to Ramsgate but clearly with our escorts and now a rescue vessel close to us, we are beginning to worry that someone knows something we don’t!

We have been able to put main and staysail up but have also left the engine on at low revs to keep driving us through the water because we are a little tight to the wind and we don’t want to arrive too late. We are getting a good push from the wind and tide so we are belting along at a reasonable speed.  When the wind is in the right direction, we passage plan at about 7 knots and we are able to keep up with this.

Bonnie and Clyde as usual are with us all the way and stay in the cockpit.  There is sun so they are either rolling around in the warmth or hiding from it.  Clyde just moves to shady spots but Bonnie has now taken to going under her blankets and hiding, including sometimes making a tent!

Having taken the long way round we pass Rough Towers and are able to turn towards Harwich which also gives us an opportunity to switch off the engine and enjoy the last few miles of the sail.  As we reach the langard buoy, it is seven hours since we left Ramsgate which is exactly the same time it took to get there but it had probably been quicker than returning the way we had come.

It is now early evening and we are keen to get anchored in the Stour, still our destination for a couple of days.  There are a number of anchorages in the Stour but we decide to go further down than our first stop of the weekend opposite Harwich Parkeston Quay. In fact, we are going to go close to Holbrook Bay, the shallow bay under the Royal Hospital School. This is a common spot for us in the summer because it is so quiet and we intend to spend the whole of Sunday here before sailing gently back on Monday in the expected north easterly winds.

As we proceed down the river, the wind dies so we are back under power and starting to take the sails down as we prepare for the anchorage. Maria selects her spot and I follow our anchoring routine. Anchor ball up, anchor buoy down, anchor down, long snubber deployed and short lines to hold the chain and protect the windlass from snatching if all else fails. This is all done quite quickly and we are able to sit down with the anchor alarm on and have a well earned drink!

Dinner is quite relaxed and we catch up on a couple of serials on the TV that we put up in the cockpit. Tomorrow is another chill day.

Easter Sunday dawns clear but with quite a cool breeze so the cockpit tent stays closed up so we get the heat of the sun but not the chill of the wind.  Early in the morning Maria breaks out the fishing gear having had another lesson from our tackle shop – and been taught another way of setting up the rig with guaranteed results. Hmmm, we’ll see!

We’re both chilling and chatting when the first of three fish is caught and Maria has

clearly got the gift again despite the first couple of hours of just catching large clumps of weed. They are all too small to keep with the first one being especially keen to return to the river as he flies out of Maria’s hands. But not before a kiss!

It’s a Sunday and Maria will always prepare a roast dinner irrespective of where we are and she is enjoying pottering in the galley getting dinner ready. As always it is a feast, I’m sure she is seeing double as she prepares the food and cooks for four rather than two.  Anyone who has eaten Maria’s roast dinner will know it is gorgeous but you will never run out of food!

It’s been a relaxing day which, with my work being hard and the stress of Maria looking for a new job, is a good thing.  It has been sunny all day and the batteries are full with the solar having soaked up 4kWh of power or 330Ah of power at 12V. It’s fantastic but as the evening comes, the wind starts to make us cold.  We decide to start the generator so that we can run the heating, heated blankets etc as well as getting the water piping hot for a lovely warm shower.

During the evening, we have decided to leave reasonably early and catch the tide on the Orwell to arrive at the top of the river while the lock is on the level. Bringing the anchor up reminds me of the amount of weed in the river and the problems this can cause. The anchor buoy works well as a marker for our anchor, a tripping line should we need it (which is unlikely) and a way to retrieve the anchor if our chain failed.  However, we did suffer once in this anchorage where the weight of the weed on the buoy actually stopped the anchor turning around and stowing properly. It jammed sideways on and had to be shaken out when we docked.  Last year, at Osea, I had swam to the buoy to clear it and struggled to get back. I certainly wasn’t going to try that in an East Coast river in April.  My solution was to retrieve the anchor until there was only ten metres of chain left.  The buoy is on 10 metres of line. This means that, as it hangs off the anchor, it goes in the same direction of the tide as Mariadz. So the buoy is quite close to our bow and using a boat hook, I am able to clear the weed from the line and reduce the weight pulling on the anchor.  The last part of retrieval goes perfectly and we are ready to start our sail home.

Overnight the wind has turned Easterly and reduced a little but we have plenty of time and so we deploy the main and stay sail and decide to tack up river. We remember from our courses the shouted instructions and responses which feel quite redundant when you have a self tacking stay sail which means the only think you need to do is turn the wheel. It doesn’t stop us calling out anyway even if all it does is inform the other that we are about to change the way the boat is heeling – which can be quite important. We make unspectacular progress up river, there isn’t really enough wind to get Mariadz going and we are going against the tide with the wind driving right down the river at us. At some stage I go below and as I pass the instruments I notice something strange. We are in fantastic sunshine but we are pulling out 30A of power. My first thought is something must be wrong, we should be using 8-12A which is more than covered by the solar and allows us to run the boat (fridges etc) and have all of the navigation on. I am looking at the panel and start switching off areas to see if I can trace it.  After some time, I find that the large switch for the winches and bow thruster seems to be culprit.  This is adjacent to another switch for the domestic which has had an issue recently. We at least know what circuit it is but I could do with the winches and we are only going up river with a lot of battery power so we should be ok. It is one that needs fixing quickly though.

As we enter the Orwell, we only have just over an hour to make it all the way to the top of the river before high tide. As we make the turn at the end of Felixstowe, the wind picks up and is right on our beam, perfect. Mariadz moves like she has been kicked and probably has a little too much sail up but she is sailing well and we are flying along at well over the motorised speed limit of 6 knots. After this section and when you make the turn at Suffolk Yacht Harbour, the wind is less steady and the contours of the land can make this a bit variable. We persevere most of the way up the river before taking the call, as the wind drops even more, and decide it is time to get ourselves back.

Sails are down and engine is on as we approach the Orwell bridge but there is a new person on the lock gates. We are told that we will have to wait on the waiting pontoon rather than going straight through on freeflow. We had been hoping not to have to tie up to the pontoon but it now looks like I will have to rig fenders and lines on both sides, once for the lock or waiting pontoon and once for our home berth.  As we get closer it is clear that the gates are open so there is nothing to worry about. It would just have been easier if that had been made clear at the beginning – still another lesson learned.

The advantage of free flow, or on the level, is that there is no delay going through the lock and so we are tied up in our berth early afternoon giving us enough time to clean Mariadz down.  It also means that we can clean off the scuff mark that we have from Ramsgate and we are as good as new.

Now to go through the snagging list from the shakedown tour including that pesky 30A draw on our power!

 

 

 

I was obviously part way through writing this one when I stopped which will be why I recall writing it but couldn’t find it.  So having discussed this with my mother in law the other weekend, it was time to finish this off.

This summer has been glorious with fantastic weather and wonderful weekends. However, we all know that this is the UK and it can, and probably will, change at any moment. You have to take advantage of the great weather when you can. That said the wind forecast was a bit strange over the weekend – one of those force 1-9, variable meaning any direction and any wind strength!

This weekend we had Maria’s best friend Lisa on board and outline plans to have my mother-in-law Jean join us but she had other potential plans on the back of a hard week of hosting people at the house. We had decided to return to the tranquil Hamford Waters when we could visit the seals again.

Maria was working hard in London at the MHRA, and I am still between jobs although I had a great interview during the week and a number of other opportunities so it looks like this year I won’t get as much time for boat chores. But I am off on the Thursday and Friday and so the Admiral has given me a long list of tasks to complete before her return, readying the boat for our weekend away.

The first of these was to unload the boat of the liveaboard junk that is probably not necessary for a weekend away in 30+ degrees of heat. The dehumidifier can go, my work shoes, various blankets and the electric heated blanket that is such a godsend in the winter but comes off during the summer.

This is going swimmingly until I step off the boat with the blankets. Now I should explain that there is a four inch gap between the toe rail and the steps on the pontoon. Both hard surfaces where something can drop and I can retrieve it.  As I step off the boat, Davy Jones invisibly reaches up from the depths and gives the controller for the heated blanket a gentle tug. In slow motion, I watch it fall but my hands are full as it teasingly hits the top step before slipping off between the steps and the boat…. and into his locker. I leap down putting the blankets down to dip my arm in and grab the controller before it gets too far, even though it is electronics and probably wrecked already. My outstretched fingers tantalisingly touch the cable but I can’t grab it as the controller sinks and joins a set of keys for the rib, a set of keys for a BMW convertible and other trophies. I guess I will be ordering a replacement Heated blanket controller when I sit down for a minute.

Another one of my tasks is to get all of the washing and drying done in the marina facilities and this is easily done, I can see the pile of ironing that will undoubtably be one of my tasks over the next week as we prepare for our annual trek to Italy.

Additional shopping and boat prep takes the rest of the day including cleaning out the grey water system, fixing various minor issues that have been hanging around and getting the last of the shopping.  It means I have been run ragged getting everything prepped before getting to the station to pick up the girls as they return from their hard day at work. Of course, Maria immediately identifies something I haven’t done and asks what have I been doing all day! She’s a hard task master and I have to count to ten 🙂

We are leaving on Thursday night but with the long days we can get a fair way down the river Before it gets dark.  This is particularly useful with the tides. High tide is around 4:30am and eleven hours after. With the low depth at Pye End, at the entrance to Hamford water, I am only comfortable going here reasonably close to high water.  By being down river, we can cross this area shortly after high water without being stuck in the Orwell all day. So that is a plan especially with this being the last weekend away on the boat for a while since we are getting close to the end of the season and about to go away for three weekends.

So we set off and go through the lock and down the river.  We’ll pick up a buoy at Levington, and be perfectly placed for the short trip tomorrow.  h no we won’t, all of the buoys that we normally pick up are taken – unheard of especially mid week.. but that is ok maybe we will go to halfpenny pier….  hmmm, pop out for dinner at the Thai or maybe the Alma with steak and lobster – our mouths are watering already.We have set our hearts on lobster at the Alma.  That is until we turn the corner to see the pier full of boats, double parked (rafted) and no room at the inn. Right we will go back to the small anchorage near Shotley although there are a couple of boats already there, we should squeeze in.  We get back there and it is all looking a bit tight.  We have now been messing about for the best part of an hour! We try to squeeze in a few more times before Maria decides that we have had enough and we will go to the large anchorage at the top of the Stour opposite Harwich parkeston quay and then we can take the rib in to Harwich and have that lovely lobster. At last some up side.

This is no problem and we decide to leave the spreader lights on when we go for food so that we will easily find Mariadz on our return.  It is a lovely dinner as always and soon we are starting to head back.  We needn’t have worried about finding Mariadz since she is lit up for all to see.  We are probably quite lucky she didn’t attract planes landing there rather than Stansted.  It’s nice to get back to her, lower the swim platform using the remote control on the rib, switch even more lights on and get back on board safely.  We’re feeling pretty smug about the changes that we have made to this area.

Of course the problem with our cunning plan is that with the messing around on the river, two rib trips and a dinner that took a while which is our fault not the pubs, it is now getting late. So it looks like we will be in bed by midnight and up at 4am….oh dear.  We must remember next time to go to bed earlier.

The next morning we are able to get up with the alarm although it is a struggle. However, shortly after we are able to see a beautiful sunrise. The previous evening our temporary crew member, who may have been a little drunk, assured us she was desperate to wake up for sunrise… in the cold light of morning she is nowhere to be seen 🙂 So obviously, we take a lot of pictures so that she can see what she could have won….

It is near high water so there is lots of room through pye end, maybe we should have got more sleep.  However, it is interesting picking your way through especially when you know there is depth, at times it seems that there is more depth away from the recommended track.  We actually generally take the route a little south of the red buoys route where there is slightly deeper water which at this state of the tide doesn’t even trigger our depth alarms which are set to an actual depth of three metres and at least a metre under our keel.

The trip there is without note and we arrive at anchorage at 6:30am and we are not alone. Our friends Martin and Caroline who have a catamaran have come away to get away from everything but Ipswich Haven has caught up with them! We anchor 100 metres away and they paddle board over…flash gits 😉 I should say that they are excellent on the paddle board together and hopefully one day we will be as competent.  That day may be a while coming!  Still we will ply them with a few drinks and hopefully they will struggle on the way back… that wasn’t the motive but could have been a by product.  There are no surprises on the way back either as they get back safe, sound and dry.  Oh well no inadvertent entertainment for us then!

As we settle down to the day there is the opportunity to get on with a few jobs around the boat including cleaning up the stainless around the boat.

My job hunting is going going well too and it looks like I will have a well paid contract in the next couple of weeks so a good day.

It is blistering sunshine so a great solar day. So much so that I have to switch the immersion heater on early in the afternoon, which uses 30A out of our batteries.  Even this doesn’t drain our batteries too much and now we have hot water for the rest of the day as the sun refills the batteries.  It is going to be a 5KWh day, which doesn’t sound much for a home but for a boat is a huge amount of power on a boat.

During the afternoon we decide that the weekend can officially begin, so let’s get the toys out…. Fortunately, in one respect, our friends have moved on, although I am sure it isn’t to avoid us.  It does mean that we can go paddle boarding, now the professionals have left…. we both have a go and I am actually able to stay on board as I take it around the buoys, back and on board whilst staying dry. I’m quietly happy as I take a long drink to settle my nerves back down!  The heart rate monitor starts to settle below 100……

Maria has a go too with mixed results before we are going for a trip in the two man Kayak which is a lot more difficult to fall off of!

 

I’m back on board and I am reminded that August is Maria’s Birthday month, yes, you heard me right, not day but MONTH. So that means there is alcohol and the expectation of presents.  Unfortunately for her, I am not falling for that – it is nearly a week til her birthday! Lisa does have her present though and won’t be here on her birthday…. Maria always gets her way and so she is happy now.

Sunset at Hamford water is lovely with very little sign off human life. As long as you don’t look North to the cranes standing like Martian war machines that is.  Despite a bit of a breeze during the afternoon, which obviously made my feat of paddle-boarding even more impressive ;), it is now completely still which adds to the calming effect. as the evening starts we are sat in the cockpit chatting and listening to music at a low level.  That is until there is a bump on the side of the boat… as we peer over, fearing a body or tree trunk, we see a seal seemingly smiling back at us.  He plays around the boat for about thirty minutes with us desperately, and failing, to take photos.  In these situations, alcohol is not your friend! Not a worry, there will be a couple of hundred we can look at tomorrow.

The next day we have agreed to pick up my Step mother-in-law, Jean, from Harwich to spend some time with us on Mariadz.  Rather than uping anchor and taking Mariadz to halfpenny pier, we have agreed that I will drop the rib and fly up to Harwich, pick her up and bring her back to Mariadz. How hard can that be? Now I should mention that Jean is a very young 72 but has recently been having some problem with her hip.  Hmmm, jumping into a rib and a quick jaunt around the harbour sounds perfect then!  However, when I say a young 72, as soon as I mentioned pick up in a speed boat, she was up for it!

So I am in the rib leaving Mariadz behind as I come out of the river to go up the coast to Harwich.  Actually, the river has been quite sheltered from the northerly wind which is a bit stronger than I expected.  The tide is also coming in which means I am going against both wind and tide on my way up to Harwich.  It’s therefore a wet and bumpy journey.  I am not worried for myself but I am about to bring Maria’s step mum down this route and I begin to doubt whether I am doing the right thing by my MIL.  It should be better on the way back when I am with the waves, he says hopefully.

Actually, the first problem is going to be getting Jean into the rib which is quite a step down from the pontoon.  We are lucky that there is a really nice guy with a motor boat that we have met before who offers to let her board from his swim platform which is quite a bit lower than the pontoon.  With a little difficulty and care this works and Jean is ensconced in the bow of the rib, reclining in her armchair setup and looking as comfortable as you like.  That could all change with a wave crashing over the bow as we go down to Hamford Water but I am sure I won’t be blamed….. We come out of Harwich and all is good and now we are turning towards the North Sea in a small 11ft rib with my precious cargo.  We make the turn south towards Hamford Water and it is remarkably comfortable, as long as I keep the speed “nice”.  That doesn’t mean driving miss daisy though since Jean seems to be enjoying the wind and light spray, it’s all very exciting. We are almost surfing and there is a little spray but no big waves drenching Jean.  Actually, her face is beaming as we travel down at about 15 knots.  It’s too noisy to talk but we are surfing a little so it isn’t too bumpy and certainly not the bone-jarring crashing  you can get, and I did, on the way up. It is with some relief that I turn into the river and the water smooths out in the shelter from the wind. As we approach Mariadz, Maria and Lisa are waiting expectantly, drinks in hand, and none of them have any idea how nervous I have been worrying that a rogue wave will soak Jean! We come up to the swim platform and Jean steps off nonchalantly as if she is a slightly damp Audrey Hepburn rather than a soaking Bridget Jones. Maria hands her a freshly filled Prosecco glass and the girls settle down for a natter.

One of the reasons for going to Hamford Water is to see the seal sanctuary, it’s actually a tourist boat trip from Harwich which is a little more comfortable than the rib! As we are preparing the rib for our excursion, a yacht crosses our bow towards the mouth of the brook where we will be heading. We are on a falling tide and as I recall there is quite a mud bank barely under the surface which is marked at the end with a red buoy. They must turn before they get there, mustn’t they? Errr, no. As they slam into the mud, oops. I am getting the keys for the rib and the hand held radio to see if they need some help when they start to move slowly, ploughing a path through the mud with their keel. They are soon free with a story to tell.  Our friends in other sailing areas aren’t used to touching the bottom but it is an occupational hazard on the East Coast of the UK.  To be fair, if you haven’t done that, you’re probably not really trying! Especially as you can be a mile off shore in three feet of water. We may have done some inadvertent dredging at times ourselves so certainly no criticism from us.

A spot of lunch before we go though. Maria prepares a gorgeous sea food platter, obviously all caught by her during the morning….. maybe not since the only nibbles she has had have been crabs stealing her bait.

We get in the rib to go and see the seals, with Jean/Audrey in her bow-shaped armchair. Lisa sat adjacent to the console and Maria next to me. I have no idea how the boat can be rated for five people since we have taken up all the room.

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There are a couple of hundred seals in this colony and with it being after low tide they are all basking on the mud.  That is until we arrive when they jump into the water as soon as we get close. There are a fair few creeks in this area for exploring and we get quite a few pictures.

We return to Mariadz and hear that Frazaz, our friends Mike and Sue from B Pontoon in Ipswich, are coming down to anchor.  They have solar as well which will get a good test as will their posh new anchor. They have settled down and we have invited them over for an afternoon drink and chat.  I have even offered to pick them up so they don’t have to go through the bind of getting their inflatable ready. It’s very sunny as the wind picks up and shifts to come straight up the river towards us.  We are teasing them about whether FraZaz looks a little further away than it was, but they are not biting! After a couple of hours, they are ready to return but the wind has picked up and because of the direction there is a metre of swell running through the anchorage. We’re able to get off Mariadz easily enough but as we get back to FraZaz it looks like boarding will be like changing bulls at a bucking bronco. Sue and Mike safely make it back on board where I am sure they checked their anchor alarm straight away 🙂

It’s a beautiful balmy clear evening as we sit in the cockpit chatting and listening to music. It’s quite a starry night and Lisa spots a particular bright star.  With some authority she reports to us that this is Venus which is quite impressive as it moves quickly across the sky and continues it’s journey towards Stansted where it is going to land! It’s getting later and we have two guests on board.  Maria has informed me that Lisa will be in the fore peak and Jean will be sleeping in our bed.  This leaves us sleeping in the cockpit, well it is a warm evening and the wind has dropped now. But of course we will be up quite early when the sun rises. The new cockpit cushions are quite comfy though and the cats also choose to sleep up top with us.

The next morning is an early start as expected and, over breakfast, we make plans to return to Harwich to drop Jean home, not in the rib this time.  Again we will depart on a half tide to make sure we have no worries with depth as we come out and with a slight breeze, we are able to sail most of the way back to Harwich.  Fortunately, the pier is clear so tying up is not an issue and it is easy for Jean to hop off and back to her car.

Shortly afterwards we are on our way up the river Orwell to home at the end of another glorious weekend.