It has been a tradition that Mariadz goes to Burnham-on-Crouch for the carnival late in September.  This coincides with a meeting of fellow Moody owners so an opportunity to catch up with friends. The marina also have a marque setup with lunch and a live band, Street Life, who we were lucky to have play at our wedding back in 2010 and we consider them to be friends.  This also seems to be a traditional place where we meet new friends.  We are invariably at the entrance to the marina and this seems to be a spot where you are seen.  This has resulted in many good friendships being formed including Amanda and Mark when they first collected their yacht Serenity, Stig on Wild Dream 2 who seems to share the tradition of visiting Burnham for carnival and Martine who had a beautiful Hardy, called Kismet.  Lots of reasons to head down the coast and into the Crouch then.

Maria and I decided we would get down to Burnham nice and early and have a few days there.  With the communications setup we have with the boat wifi extender, a mifi and now an aerial booster for the mifi, we are always connected and Maria could continue to work as usual while I guided the boat.  The journey to Burnham on Crouch from Ipswich is about 45 miles and it is ten miles to get to Landguard which is a cardinal buoy that we consider as the start of all of our routes.  Maria was very keen to get to Burnham early in the day so that Mariadz (rather than Maria) could be tied up for the afternoon. Unfortunately this meant that the tides in the Wallet wouldn’t be ideal, and neither was the wind.  It would also mean going across the shallow Spitway at Gunfleet on or around low tide.  Mariadz is more than capable of handling the weather although it would mean that we would probably be a little slower than our usual passage planning speed of seven knots and we would be especially careful at the shallow sections.  In order to offset this we decided to leave the night before and pick up a mooring buoy near the bottom of the Orwell which would gain us an hour.  A nice early start the next day and all would be fine…..

The provisions were on board and we were pretty much ready to go but it is getting later.  Maria gently pulled Mariadz out of her berth to head towards the lock and Mark from Motion took a pic for us.  Shortly after the picture was taken we noticed that the satellite dish was still up, just ahead of the mast!  Better get that in before we go too far down the river!

The trip down the river is uneventful with few craft on the river and within the hour we are approaching the mooring buoys but with a strong southerly wind in our faces.  We discuss the approach and think that the wind is going to be stronger than the tide so to approach into the wind so that Maria can stop Mariadz easily.  After a couple of failed attempts to pick up the buoy Maria suggests we approach from the other side.  The buoys opposite Suffolk Yacht Harbour have a thick loop of rope and one of these had another thin long line attached to it, I assume to help with picking it up. That restricts the use of the bow thruster then, we don’t want a rope getting caught in there.  I have our stainless extendable boat hook and I get a good grip of the line for the buoy, unfortunately the hook then decides to detach itself from the pole.  It is ok though since it is still caught up in the thick line on the buoy.  Go and get the other boat hook while Maria spins Mariadz round, pick up the line, grab the old hook, thread the line and we are all good!  Maria does her part perfectly and has the buoy perfectly mid-ships where I can reach it.  I start to lift the buoy and the hook is coming up and just as I reach out to grab it, it drops off and into the Orwell where it joins an identical complete stainless steel boat hook that we dropped there a few years ago!  Oh well, another replacement hook required.  Still I thread the line and tie us close to the buoy.  Maria is a little concerned since we are lying quite close to the next buoy which has a catamaran on it but I agree that I will check it at the change of tide a bit later in the evening.  In the end we remain far enough away from the catamaran despite the slightly different swing characteristics compared to Mariadz.  It is a breezy evening but the next day is clear although we didn’t get started too early, no surprise there.  Based on our later departure time, we are likely to reach the spitway shortly after low tide so at least we will be on a rising tide if we do find it too shallow. It’s 9am by the time we reach the Languard buoy, and we head towards Medusa while being on lobster pot lookout (this area is notorious for badly marked pots and fishing nets strewn across the channel). Progress is slow and there are very few other boats out.  We are against tide and wind and we travel down the wallet quite slowly (for us).  I’m not too worried since we will arrive at the Spitway at the bottom of Gunfleet sands after low tide as expected and it does give us a chance to get some good shots of boats coming the other way with the wind and tide.

I have also had the opportunity to tidy our fenders on this trip and eight of them fit perfectly on the two mast pulpits (granny bars).  Martin, our yachtmaster and friend, would be proud that we hadnt left them on the deck!

We arrive at the top of the Spitway which is marked with a single buoy and a corresponding buoy at the other end.  When we have no fears over water levels we will quite often cut the corner between the buoy and Gunfleet sands where the water is quite deep.  This saves a bit of time and I have never had any shallow water issues but at this state of tide we are going to take the text book route.  We are lined up and I am behind the wheel, unusually, but this will allow me to take over from the autopilot quickly if we have an issue.  The water is smooth, which is helpful. At least I won’t need to consider the wave height when thinking of the depth of water but it is getting shallower.

Our depth instruments are set to actual depth of water rather than water under the keel.  This means that the alarm goes off at three metres depth (over a metre under the keel)rather than nearly five metres which it would be if it was tuned to depth under the keel, and at five metres the alarm would always be going off on the East Coast.  We have barely started the passage across the Spitway and the alarm goes off for three metres depth and the depth is still going down.  It is now in the low twos for a long time but as we approach the middle of the Spitway the level goes below two metres.  Mariadz is a shaol keel which means she only draws 1.8M, although she will draw the same if she is heeled.  When calibrating the depth I had also added 20cm safety margin but when I see the depth touch 1.8M I am getting a little concerned.  I recheck and we are directly between the buoys but this is less water than I was expecting.  Fortunately this doesn’t last for long and soon the depth is increasing as we exit the Spitway.  I am now wondering whether my usual “short-cut” route might actually be preferable and deeper.  Certainly something to check the next time we go through.

We turn and head towards the River Crouch, going between the mud banks at it’s entrance.  The River Crouch seems very long when it starts at the mud and it is not the most picturesque river but the advantage is the opportunity to see seals bathing on the mud. Today there are relatively few, we have seen nearly a hundred before but there was a nice group gathered for a coffee morning and chat.  Soon after this we see an ocean rowing boat.  We later discover that this is team Kung Fu Cha Cha who are intending to be the only Chinese team in the Talisker Whiskey Atlantic Challenge this year.  They seemed to be doing pretty well on their warm up run up the crouch and the AIS track showed good speed :).  We will definitely be following this team in the upcoming race.

There is quite a stiff breeze as we go up the river and we have put some sail out to provide better balance and a little extra speed.  We see some other boats coming the other way,

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as we negotiate the northern channel into the crouch adjacent to Buxey sands and everyone is exchanging friendly waves.

The cats are their normal relaxed selves, sitting in the cockpit being chilled as we motorsail in.

The wind is now blowing quite hard from the South and we start to think about the approach to Burnham.  We intend to get the sails away before we get amongst the moorings at Burnham where the channel thins out which will give me lots of time to get the lines and fenders sorted out.  It is now lunchtime and I call into the marina using the phone, we are too far away for the radio.  Bruce answers and explains that the minor issue he had with a boat in our booked berth has been overcome and we are clear to take the hammerhead.  Maria and I then discuss our approach.  We are only a little after low tide and so there are shallow elements near the entrance of Burnham and we will need to be careful, no cutting the corners today!  Maria realises that she will have to come in and as she passes between the entrance poles, she will have to turn hard to starboard and then let the wind push Mariadz onto the pontoon controlling her with the bow thruster and using the engine to line her up with the hammerhead.  Maria is a little apprehensive in the twenty knot wind but she handles the boat well and I am confident that we will do fine if we communicate well.  On the final approach into the marina, the water is shallow and the alarm goes off.  For one second we are thinking we may run into the mud at the entrance and be stuck for some time waiting to be floated off by the tide – you know every man and his dog would have chosen that time to come into the marina – and you don’t want to be the gnome greeting everyone at the entrance!  There are no such concerns as Maria negotiates the last of the approach and puts the wheel hard to starboard before starting to take the speed off the boat.  A bit of straightening up with the bow thruster and minor adjustment to line up with the hammerhead and we drift gently into position.  I step off and we are tied quite quickly.  A little after lunchtime but Maria gets her afternoon moored or tied up….lucky girl.

The E/F pontoon hammerhead is our usual and favoured berth at Burnham but the pontoon feels shorter than we remember, we are therefore overhanging on both sides so we will need to think carefully about how we tie up.  I catch up with Bruce who explains that another similar sized boat will come in the next day and could we make this easier by moving forward when they come in before returning to our normal position afterwards.  We absolutely understand the issues with manoeuvring in the tight spaces and we offer to give them a hand when they arrive.  Our friend Lisa has also come to stay for the weekend so the cats will get spoilt too.

Friday is a normal working day for Maria and, after job hunting an opportunity for me to get the boat cleaned up, we like her to look her best :).  This takes several hours but by the end of it Mariadz is looking beautiful for all of ten minutes! This is an issue at Burnham.  The marina is very nice, we have met some great people there and the carnival weekend is always excellent but there is an issue with birds – not Essex girls but Hitchcock level birds.  They look lovely as they fly around and at one stage we saw thirty starlings on the spreaders and standing rigging of one boat which made it look like a Christmas tree.  However, these birds seem to eat a lot of red and black berries…..so shortly after I have finished the deck, it looks like Prince’s mythical Purple Rain has happened.  I have cleaned the windows and I am not doing that again, so we will put up with it until the end of the weekend when I clean Mariadz down after our journey.

Bruce returns to tell us that a 50ft ketch, Sweet Surrender, will be with us in the next thirty minutes.  I set about moving Mariadz using the lines and the wind to push her forward.  It won’t be that easy to get her back, we will need the engine, but I am able to move her forward without disturbing the girls, or the cats!  Sweet Surrender arrives and John, the skipper, has her perform a flawless pirouette before putting her gently on the end of the long pontoon next to us.  I am there to take lines if needed but she comes to lie so gently against the pontoon that we have all day to get her tied off.  Maria can then start the engine of Mariadz and we can put her back to her old position with stern coming out as far as the boats on the long pontoon and the bow slightly overhanging the next entrance.  We have a nice chat and later a few drinks with the crew of Sweet Surrender before coming back to Mariadz for a gorgeous home made fish pie, prepared by Maria but with top quality ingredients sourced (or sauced) by Adam.  It’s going to be a long weekend so an early night is called for but not before Maria asks whether I can get the satellite dish setup so she can record some programmes over the weekend.  Now in a domestic setup, a clever engineer, works out where to point the dish when the system is setup and you never need to think about it. On a boat or motorhome, every time you move you need to reposition the dish, and in a boat you need to make sure you are tied well or the dish will move and lose the signal.  On one of our trips to a motorhome show, Maria had decided to get rid of the old standard dish and replaced it with a QuickSAT QS65 Portable Satellite System which doesn’t have an arm that can be broken. It also comes with everything you need to align the satellite…well, a mat, a rudimentary compass and a clever device to get the angle right – who needs a spirit level when you have that! At our home base in Ipswich, I know pretty much where to point the dish and generally get it set up well but I have not had such luck on our travels.  Burnham is quite easy to work out as the river goes east-west and we are on the north bank, so I put down the mat and roughly align the dish while I go to get the compass etc.  Before I get back I have a signal on the sky box! Excellent, now Maria can record X-factor…. 😉

Saturday is the major day of the Burnham weekend.  It starts with the Tucker Brown cup, followed by the meal and great music from Street Life and the end of the day is the carnival itself with a funfair on the walk back to the marina.  A busy day! We were asked if we fancied joining the race down the river but on this occasion we decline, I’m not sure if there is a handicap for having extra crew and Bonnie and Clyde aren’t really up for it.  There also isn’t much wind and definitely not enough to get Mariadz moving well. Apparently running the engine, even in stealth mode with our dry exhaust would be frowned upon :).  However, we are in a good position to take photos as they go past the Marina although the sun is a little bit of an issue, we are not going to complain.

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We also get a chance to support a lovely Hallberg Rassy 352, with its crew of four including two cats.  Unfortunately, the cats aren’t able to make the difference and they don’t win it this year!  With the race finished the lunchtime entertainment is due to begin and the Moody Owners have reserved some tables so we can all sit together.  These are near the food and bar and furthest away from the band.  We have seen Street Life a number of times and booked them for the evening entertainment for our wedding.  They are great with a mixture of old and new music.  If you haven’t seen them, I often describe them as like the band from The Commitments film but without the obnoxious lead singer character, we love them to bits and always have a good time when they are playing.  It also helps that Cliff is a keen sailor with his boat “Lusty Wench” (What a great name 🙂 ).  The food is great, the drinks are flowing and we are spending time with old friends and new.  I even finally got Maria up to dance towards the end.  As the place clears there is an invite to a Moody Owners get together on a Jeanneau NC11 motorboat, not a Moody and not a yacht but we won’t hold that against them. It actually looks really nice and the thirty odd people seem to fit on it, although she does look like she is on the plane with all the weight in the stern.  A couple more drinks and some nibbles before we head back to Mariadz to prepare for the evening’s entertainment.  Most of this preparation seems to be inviting people on board and more drinking and chatting. Oh well 🙂

To be fair we missed most of the carnival, unusual for us, and then met up with other friends in one of the pubs before getting home late and rather drunk.  Everyone seemed to have a good time and a very enjoyable taxi ride home – one to ask us about when you see us!

On Sunday we are due to return home.  One of the reasons that the event this year was a little less well attended than usual was the weather prediction for Sunday and the rest of the week.  Strong winds being expected from the South although this should work to our advantage and push us home nicely.  It also combines perfectly with the tides with a not too early departure.  That was a stroke of luck! However, in the morning we are not quick to rise and it is 10am before we have seen Lisa off and have the boat ready.  Just before we go there is a little excitement as one of the ocean rowing teams, not our Chinese friends, is brought in by the RNLI. There is a little concern at how bad it is out there but Mariadz can take it so hopefully we wont be needing the RNLI services later.

There is a 20knot southerly wind pushing us onto the pontoon and Maria is a little concerned that this may push us onto the bowsprit of Sweet Surrender but we have agreed to spring off from the bow which take us away at 30 degrees from the pontoon.  All the fenders are in place and we have a little help from our new friends. This was a little fortunate as I hadn’t moved the bow spring far enough back onto the pontoon but we were able to pause the manoeuvre, move the line and start again.  We come off fine so although not exactly text book, everything is good.  Maria then takes Mariadz astern and with a hard starboard turn we are through the exit and into the river.  This gives me the opportunity to stow the fenders on the mast pulpits (granny bars) again.  Unfortunately our departure coincides with a yacht race down the Crouch so Maria slows down and we follow the race down river.  There is some minor concern as the racers approach their turn and we momentarily think that the course may return directly back down the river and straight at us but they pass on our port side presenting some good photo opportunities.

After this excitement, the river is very quiet today which is something we quite often find.  There have been any number of occasions when we have looked at each other and realised that we are the only “mugs” out here!  We always keep a watch out on channel 16 when on passage and at 11am we heard a new weather warning.  Having swapped to the correct channel we hear that there are gale force winds expected “soon” which is maritime speak for the next six to twelve hours.  This means it could be when we are out there.  This wouldn’t be the first time that we have experienced force 8/9 winds since we had this experience returning from Dunkirk (The return from Dunkirk (part 2 of 3) – pan pan).  This would be our first time in Mariadz as a Moody though.  So we will need to be careful.  Originally, the expectation with a good breeze behind us was that we would fly up the wallet (lucky we have that spoiler on the back now!).  The reality was that the wind was variable and gusty with one minute there being 10 knots of wind and the next 35 knots of wind.  We decided that we would be taking no risks and started off sailing with half the main, the staysail and a third of the yankee headsail out.  As we came out of the Crouch we saw the only other sailing boat that we would see all day coming back in under ominous black clouds.  At this stage, even with much reduced sail, we are flying along at 8.5knots with the wind on the beam.  Soon we will be turning towards the Wallet and over the Spitway, which this time has lots of water over it.  As we turn, I take advantage of the change in the wind angle to take in the headsail, the other two are easy to get in if we need to and those clouds could be accompanied by even more wind.  To be fair the reduced sail didn’t harm our speed much and we still bumbled along at a good seven knots for the whole journey but it gave us piece of mind.  First though the Wallet, which is affectionately called “vomit alley” was incredibly rolly, with waves going across our beam but at least the tide and wind were in the same direction.

It is much worse when they are against each other although Mariadz is big enough to plough through these rather than bouncing up and down like Captain Pugwash’s Black Pig.  However, it is a little rolly which with a couple of hangovers isn’t ideal.

We have travelled up the Wallet quite a few times and when you have a following wind, there can be a problem as you turn to port into Medusa to head toward Felixstowe.  The wind changes from being behind you, to be on your beam and what seemed like a gentle breeze can seem much worse and make the boat heel a lot.  We are always very careful before making this turn.  On this occasion there is enough south in the wind for it to remain astern of us and so we just needed to control the gybe as the wind passes from one side of the boat to the other.  We always use a gybe preventer whenever the wind is behind and this can also help us to control the main when we turn so the manoeuvre is quite smooth.  After completing the turn we seem to be sailing very nicely at exactly the same speed as the waves, it is smooth and not rolling at all while we still travel at seven knots. We still haven’t seen another boat since we left the Crouch!  It seems no time at all till we are at Landguard and into very familiar waters.  We decide to keep sailing up the Orwell because the wind should be perfect.  Actually, it is even more variable as we are intermittently shielded from the wind by trees and hills on the shore.  It is now late Sunday afternoon on the Orwell and the river is completely empty, there must have been real concerns over the weather because normally the river is busy at this time.  We head up but lose a bit of time because of the variability of the wind, we are not too bothered and by this time Maria has put the roast dinner in the oven so it will be ready when we arrive in Ipswich.

Despite there being twenty knots of wind Maria gets Mariadz into the lock perfectly even when we had to move her forwards because another boat is approaching (where did he come from !!).  It is then through the lock and into the wind for a bows-to mooring in our berth which goes seamlessly.

Thirty minutes after being tied up, dinner is on the table!

We’ve caught up with our friends and made some new ones, the sailing has been great and Mariadz has performed perfectly.  All round great weekend!

Before I start, I should say that Maria is a London girl rather than an Essex girl! That said our three daughters and our feline daughter were all born in Essex but this also doesn’t refer to them 🙂

The last summer bank holiday of the year saw a very still and warm forecast and with Maria having worked very hard particularly in the last month we agreed we would get out and have a relaxing time. Earlier in August, we had anchored in Osea Island and, apart from the pretty good late night music and water skiers in the morning, it was very tranquil and we probably didn’t spend as long there as we would have liked.

So it was decided that we would head down to Osea on Friday, Maria could work while I drive :). The prediction for the whole weekend was for winds in single digits and Mariadz needs mid-teens to really get going so we expected that we would be motor-sailing most of the way. We also intended to get out quite early, at low tide in Ipswich, which would mean we would have the tide with us for the whole journey.  That plan was stopped when I had to go and sort a few things out for the boat and Maria had calls so it wasn’t until lunchtime that we left (several hours later than we had hoped). We motored down the river with the wind on the bow and as we pass Wolverstone we are hailed from the shore, are we going too fast? Is there a problem with the boat that we haven’t seen? Neither, just some friends who recognised us but as I said to Maria, I have gorgeous bikini-clad women shouting and waving at me all the time, so I didn’t think anything of it. We also get buzzed by the red arrows as they fly over the Orwell, just another day on the river…. We have now decided to leave the sails until we are out to sea since the last turn toward Felixstowe and through the Medusa channel is due South and would be dead into the wind, and we’re not tacking up the river today when we are later than we should be already! We pass the two large containers unloading on the newest docks at Felixstowe, each over 1,000 feet long and we are gently motoring towards the wallet and the gunfleet windfarm. The southerly wind is in our faces but we know the turn to south west into the Wallet will give us the opportunity to get some sail up and motorsail at the very least. So a couple of hours into our journey and we are ready to get some sail up and with little wind, it’s gonna be all the sail -main, yankee and stay sail! Even against the tide we are making reasonable progress down the Wallet, which is incredibly busy giving an opportunity to get the camera out and take action pics of the boats.

The Clacton air show was on the Thursday and Friday of this week so we will be catching the latter part of this as we drift past Clacton.

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Several boats are returning to port having spent the day at the air show but now we are approaching an awful lot of moored yachts and motorboats at Clacton. From a distance this almost looks like a pop-up Marina but as you get closer you can see there are quite big gaps between the boats. We have friends anchored off and other friends watching from the beach so hopefully they all saw us as well as the planes! We are on the look out for other friends amongst the anchored boats but I think they must be a sniper in camouflage since they were able to get a shot of us but I couldn’t see them. I later find that there had been more bikini-clad women waving to me, sorry to at I missed it this time. 🙂 We keep going at a reasonable pace with the intention of getting to Osea at about 7:30pm, a little late if there is a problem anchoring or the anchorage is full but we have been here a few times and never had a problem before. As you negotiate the gap at Colne bank, you can see the Bradwell Nuclear Power Station in front of you and it is another couple of hours down the blackwater, against the tide, to get to Osea. The river is quite quiet this evening and we make good progress, still motor sailing but with the wind having shifted slightly to South Easterly giving us some assistance from the sails as we progress down the river.  We go past Radio Caroline, which I didn’t realise was still broadcasting, one time we will have to try and get it on the radio when we go past! We arrive at Osea at the time we expected and start setting the anchor, I have remembered to attach the anchor float so that we know where the anchor is, the snubber is attached and holds the chain below the waterline which helps with keeping the anchor and boat comfortable and protects our top sides from the chain.  Finally, the anchor ball goes up and the anchor light is on so we are ready to settle down for a quiet evening as Bradwell gentle glows in the distance behind us 😉. Having lived in Tollesbury, on the other side of the river, for six years, I guess I shouldn’t worry too much about the Bradwell glow! We are up on deck quite late enjoying the tranquility so no music for us or Maria belting out tunes! She must be tired.  Maria’s actually in bed by ten but that probably isn’t a bad thing and means that she will be rested for the weekend.

The next morning, Clyde comes to wake us at about 8am being a demanding cuddle cat.  That’s fine though since we don’t want to waste the day away. The morning is magnificent, sunny and still, at least until the water skiers turn up mid morning! We decide that before everywhere gets too busy we will move to a better spot.  The place we chose last night meant at low tide we were within seven metres of one of the buoys, Maria doesn’t like that so we move further down the river where it is a little shallower but with more room.  The move is uneventful and we are settled back down with the float out, snubber on and anchor watch application keeping an eye on us.

We’re planning our day and a rib trip down the blackwater sounds a good option, leave three hours before high tide and come back about the same afterwards and we should be fine….or we will be waiting until the early hours for the tide to come back in.

Getting the rib set up is easy and we have the garmin navigation and the hand held VHF so we are safe enough. It takes about 30 minutes to get round to the Heybridge lock and then another ten minutes round to Maldon. Before we go we take a few pictures of Mariadz looking regal in the river. And we’re off. It’s actually quite a nice trip on a rising tide although the garmin keeps telling me this would be shallow normally, but with the tide we are fine. However, we are being very careful, as always, and stay to the channel in the centre. This is quite ridiculous as we find when we get to Maldon. Our rib, Connie, probably needs about 30cm of water, compared to the 180cm of Mariadz. As we arrive in Maldon, we see a lot of the Thames Barges that we see in the Orwell! Maybe I didn’t need to worry about the depth…. having lived in Tollesbury for so long and spent a couple of years driving through Maldon to get to work – I didn’t know anything about the riverside area at all and it looks really nice. My first experience is to go to the two pubs on the waterfront, having left the rib on the small visitors pontoon. This works well as we arrive to an empty pontoon, but soon after the world and his wife have decided to come to Maldon, so I had to keep going back to make sure that little Connie didn’t get crushed by anybody and to move her so that others could squeeze in. We all work together and by moving things around we get everyone into the pontoon.  This includes some new friends on a small yacht who made contact with land a couple of metres short of the pontoon! We waited a few minutes for the tide to lift them from the mud and then could bring them into the pontoon rather than being stuck out there 🙂 later we saw them sailing back up the blackwater “refreshed”.

Having had a bite to eat and a couple of liquid refreshments, it’s time to get back to the boat and cats. We head back on the rib and see some really pretty beach huts on sticks (sorry no pics) just north of heybridge.  We then decide it is time for our first circumnavigation …of Osea island – pah that wasn’t difficult! Maria is feeling proud having got that under her belt. We’re back in time for sunset, a lovely BBQ and some time with the cats who have missed us. Sunset is amazing with the sky turning a deep red, I promise there is no filter on the photograph. Then as we are finishing dinner, a couple of guys from an adjacent boat are pottering around in their inflatable and come to say hi, I suspect that we will be chatting more tomorrow…. especially as we can hear them laughing and joking on their boat anchored nearby!

Sunday is a very still day again, morning Clyde, is it attention time already? Anyway with a sunny day forecast and nowhere near enough wind to get Mariadz going, it will be a relaxing day listening to music, sunbathing and chilling – just what Maria needs. But first, the boat looks untidy and needs a clean. Another advantage of the liveaboard life is that when your home needs tidying up, you can do it when your anchored rather than cutting the weekend short to return to your house to do your chores. Anyway, 30 minutes later and we are all clean and tidy.  Now the real work of sunbathing and relaxing can begin. Oh and maybe a cheeky glass of wine. Our new friends in the anchorage pop up river for a sail, there isn’t any wind though 😉, and on their return we invite them onto Mariadz to properly introduce ourselves before hitting the beach later for a barbecue. For one of the crew, it is her first time on water, and she is not comfortable doing the ride to Mariadz in their inflatable.  I offer to pop over in the rib to collect her and come back nice and slowly so as not to worry her.  I throw the line back to Mariadz but the combination of my poor throw and a missed catch means that the rope is in the water. Instinctively, I reverse back so that I can retrieve the line, why did I do that! The line gets nicely wrapped around the prop of the rib and the engine stops.  After switching off the ignition, I lift the engine and unwrap the line as we drift slowly down the river. Lowering the engine and restarting works fine and we can try and do a better job of it this time!  We get my passenger safely on board and we can add another unique experience to our boating life. To be fair it was quite quick to resolve the issue and if it hadn’t have been, I would have been able to deploy the anchor quite quickly too while I solved it (or ended up rowing back to Mariadz…. with one oar…. against a stong tide). Let’s just be grateful that no damage was done!

The drinks are flowing and Maria is making up her innocent-tasting, wicked cocktails – these four are about to be Mariadz-ed! After several hours of drinking, we need to go to the beach if we are going to eat more than nibbles.  The anchorage is now getting busy too but we have been here a night already so hopefully the other boats will anchor in a way that doesn’t cause us any problems. Not that is an issue for us, we like to have access to the decks and so we deploy our fenders which has the added benefit of giving the cats a way to get back on board if they did fall in.  It must look strange and unnerving though when you anchor close to a boat that has their fender deployed, not much confidence in anchoring ability being demonstrated there!

Anyway, everyone gets their stuff together for the beach party and we ride into shore in three dinghies to set up camp, having been joined by another couple from a small motor cruiser from Maldon. We are now on a falling tide with low tide scheduled to be about 11pm but we are not worried about such things…..yet.  Maria goes off “hunting for wood” but it must be hiding because she comes back with only a small twigs.  It is ok though as we all go off and forage for wood for the fire and soon with some liquid help it is roaring, a little like us! Maria’s brought some music and a speaker, although thankfully not the full karaoke setup, so music is playing and it is a lovely evening.  We are eating quite late but everyone is having a good time.

After sunset and dinner, four of our party decide to head back to their boat but the rest of us are continuing chatting. However, some time later, there are some shouts from the yachts anchored closest to shore.  These are not ABOUT us but apparently someone is stuck in the mud so we are needed to go to their assistance.  We discover that one of the girls decided to get out of the tender as they were returning to their boat.  Apparently the swim to shore was fine but then, because of the low tide, she was wading through exceptionally grippy mud. We rush over and find her up to her waist in mud and unable to move.  One of things I noticed here was that there seems to be two consistencies of mud here which I guess depends on how long it is exposed to air.  The mud towards the top of the bank is quite hard and easy to walk on.  But as low tide approaches and you get closer to the water, the mud becomes like quicksand.  It took a few minutes to extricate her, and ourselves, from this thick mud and then we got her to the fire to keep warm.  Maria and I go down to the rib to see how far away it is from the water and it is still 30 metres.  We start to lift, push and pull 150kg of rib and engine down the beach but we then get to the thick mud.  Having seen what this can do already tonight, we agree to leave the boat here and wait for the tide to come in. As we return to the camp fire, having deployed the anchor just in case, we have to explain the decision to the mud-encrusted girl who is now very keen to get back to her boat. In the fullness of time, the tide comes in and floats Connie and we can all start to get in with all of our stuff from the beach. We are covered in mud. We drop off a mud-caked young lady at her boat and return back to Mariadz.  We have to do some cleaning straight away on the bathing platform with the really useful shower, hurrah something that worked and I haven’t had to fix! The main clean up will be tomorrow, so all of the mud caked clothes are left in the cockpit and we go to have a proper shower on board.

The next morning I am awake early despite it being a late night.  There are quite a few boats that have left already. It is a beautiful morning and I get the opportunity to survey the scene of devastation on Mariadz. Well alright there is some mud, empty drinks etc.  I notice that we have a few bags from our new friends and also some things missing which I assume they have, so when I see life on their yacht I get back into the rib to return their stuff.  They seem to have the last things that we are missing and I return to Mariadz as Maria gets up to tell me there is another bag! So it’s back in the rib and delivering more stuff. All this is done and over the next hour or so, Maria and I tidy up the boat for our return to Ipswich and lift Connie back up using the davits and secure her.  The tides are not really in our favour and there is barely any wind, and certainly not enough to drive Mariadz without some help from the engine but it is a glorious day and will be a pleasant trip home.  We send our farewells by text and start our journey home.

The trip up the Blackwater is as calm and still as you would expect.  Although I do have sail up eventually, we do have to switch the engine on as we drift along at a couple of knots. We can’t spend a whole day on the return. Lots of people are trying to take advantage of the glorious day but are similarly challenged to go at any speed but everyone is showing willing.

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I get to take quite a few pictures of the other boat up the Wallet and the Orwell. The highlight of which was seeing a porpoise and her young swimming in the Wallet, although I will admit it isn’t the best picture in the world!  Maria became an excited school girl when she saw it!  Really sweet as she spontaneously bursts into tears.

As we pass Felixstowe Maria pops the roast into the oven so that it will be ready soon after our arrival.  We arrive in time for freeflow at the lock and so it is quickly through and tied up, Maria doing this a little quicker than she would normally, apparently because she needed to see to the potatoes 🙂

Its been a wonderful few days and really felt like a holiday in the Med or the Caribbean.  Maria has had a good break and we have made some new friends..

Oh and what’s an Essex girl’s favourite wine?

“I wanna go t’ Clacton!”.

🙂

With the boat back in the water and Maria’s upcoming workload as her projects go live, we had worked out that the only opportunity we had to get out for a few weeks was going to be the first weekend of August.  It had also been a long time since Lisa Jones had been with us and so we made arrangements to all get together. Lisa took Friday off work to come to the boat with the intention of getting out early for a nice weekend away.

The weather forecast was a little changeable with an element of Westerly in the wind prediction for most of the weekend.  Although the temperatures looked pretty good there was also some rain expected over the weekend so it was more with hope than expectation that we prepared for the weekend.  As usual, Maria wanted me to go to the fishing tackle shop and buy her some worms so that she go fishing over the weekend.  I may have mentioned before that this is a common request from Maria and most times there isn’t much fishing being done.  The result is I feed a lot of worms to the crabs and would have had better value for money at the fishmonger rather than the fishing tackle store! All of the other provisioning has been done, including unloading lots of stuff from the motorhome, and the boat is ready to go.

The girls are both very keen to go to Burnham or Osea Island but I am trying to tempt them with heading North for the first time.  Maybe Lowestoft or Great Yarmouth would be good destinations to try out?

Unfortunately, Maria is incredibly busy at the moment with a go live on her projects at the end of the week and so there is no let-up in her work.  So Maria is going to have to work on the Friday.  However, if she can get a free thirty minutes, we can get through the lock and she can continue to work while I sail Mariadz down the river.  We can then tie up at Halfpenny Pier in Harwich, anchor in the Orwell, moor on a buoy at Levington or start heading to our destination depending on the time.  Maria doesn’t get ten minutes to herself all day so we are stuck in our berth waiting for a window in her workload.  By 6pm, we can leave.  The first stage of the plan will therefore be a stop down the river.  We decide that a mooring buoy sounds like the best plan and head down the river at a gentle pace following a new large Fairline motor boat on its way to Southampton. In just over an hour we are tied up to a mooring buoy, the Prosseco has been broken out and the girls are starting to relax.  We settle down to watch the sunset over the River Orwell as our pork chops cook in the galley.  At the age of 72, Adam’s Dad has discovered Facebook.  His regular posts on the recovery of Adam’s Mum from a stroke in March, help us all understand the progress and the difficulty of these long term recoveries. It is clear from his latest update that today has been a hard day and we agree to facetime him to have a face-to-face chat over the internet. Two hours later, dinner has been switched off, alcohol has been consumed and we are all still chatting but Dad is in a better place and his favourite daughter outlaw (in joke I’m afraid) is now past eating.  A few more drinks and a bit more chatting and it is time for bed before we head to Osea Island the next day – I never get my own way 🙂

We are up at a reasonable time the next day but inexplicably seem to have run short of milk so I have to deploy and hop in the rib to pop to the shops before we can go anywhere.  Fortunately, the chandlery at Levington has a small selection of food and drink including milk so I don’t have to go too far and I am back on board and rib stowed before the girls have finished getting the rest of the boat ready for sailing.

I have an easy way to remember the tides in the North Sea, where the area fills from the North and empties to the North.  That means that prior to high tide the flow is south and after high tide it is North as the water levels lower. We are ready to leave at pretty much high tide in the morning so we will be fighting the tide all of the way.  However, the wind seems to be staying North Westerly so at least we will have some wind helping us even if it means we are slightly wind against tide with the issues with nasty waves that can be a result.  We are also getting a little more wind than the 8-10knots that we were expecting with the wind getting up to the high teens.  We are keeping the engine on and motor-sailing to ensure that we can continue to make sensible progress and will arrive early evening rather than near to sunset.  Our friends in motorboats don’t suffer from the tides like we do.  When you average seven knots, adding or subtracting up to two knots can add a lot of time to your journey.  This isn’t quite the same at 20 Knots where the impact is 10%.  We have found before that a journey that can take a couple of hours with the tide, can take four against it so we are always very watchful of the tides and try to have them in our favour whenever possible.

It doesn’t take long to get out of Harwich when you start at Levington, and we are soon heading South towards the Gunfleet windfarm and the wallet, the stretch of water between Gunfleet and the land. We are making good progress with a full mainsail out, the staysail deployed and the running backstays setup to ease any stress on the mast. Mariadz is sitting comfortably in the water as we progress through the wallet heading towards Brightlingsea.  Its about lunchtime and we have a perfectly serviceable meal from the previous night, thanks Dad!  Maria heats and freshens it up and the pork chops swimming in gravy come out with mash and veg.  It is wonderful.

As we approach the Colne Bar, the clouds are getting a little more menacing and they are some squals in the air. One of the squals is a little too close.  The rain and wind come suddenly and the wind strength rapidly goes to 40+ knots, not comfortable at all.  We try to point the bow to the wind using the autohelm so that we can take the power out of all of the sails since we still have a lot of sail out but we are heeling over quite a lot as we get there. The self tacking staysail is the problem since it adjusts itself to get the wind unless you are pretty much pointing at the wind.  As we get close to the wind direction, I free the staysail outhaul so that I can go and reel it in.  In the time it takes me to get to the stern to pull it in the leech of the sail (the edge of the sail furthest aft), has thrashed itself against the outhaul line and torn the ultraviolet protection strip.  Not a disaster but annoying and will need a repair.  The main goes in a little messily but is reefed in safely and we are back under complete control and safe.  A lightening bolt and a huge clap of thunder are very close to us but this misses us by half a mile and so not a problem for us or the couple of other yachts that we can see nearby. Then as quickly as it came onto us, the squal is gone and the wind is back to how it was.  We had been a little bit complacent about Mariadz’s capability and not as observant as we should have been but the boat had handled it fine (and safely) and we had a minor repair to remind us of our mistake.  On checking down below, all is good, so we must have stowed everything away well enough to handle a lot of movement, and the cats are not too worried.

After this bit of excitement, it takes a little time for us to get the confidence back to put more sail out again and for the rest of the trip we are very careful with a watchful eye on the sky.  There are no further surprises and we can get back to enjoying the trip. At Mersea island, we have a choice of whether to anchor in Pyefleet Creek which goes around the North of the Island or head the two hours further down the River Blackwater to Osea Island.  We agree to push on through since it is likely we will be arriving at the anchorage prior to 6pm.  If it is full, it can be very popular, then we can head back to Pyefleet.  This may also be difficult with the Brightlingsea festival on this weekend but we will see.

The River Blackwater is a lovely wide river at this point which is better for avoiding other boats than the Orwell which can be quite thin with a number of options where people could tack.  In the Orwell there have been a number of occasions when I have had to alter course multiple times to avoid a boat tacking towards me when they have tacked at unexpected points.  This is not a problem on the Blackwater where the courses are quite predictable and there is less traffic.  Although there are quite a lot of buoys that are not on the charts so you need to stay observant or you will find one going past within a few metres…..

When sailing, we always observe a radio watch on a local channel if required but also one channel 16.  This can be fun when you hear people saying “over and out” (one or the other please 🙂 ).  Some of the boats calling each other can be quite amusing too, “this is ocean dream calling St. Tropez, over”……. off the Essex coast on a bit of a dreary day! But you also hear other calls, a pan pan because someone is stuck on a sand bank but not in immediate danger and another boat that has lost their mast and rig.  A busy day on the radio and you are constantly chaning channels to see what is going on, and also to offer help if you can 🙂

Further down the River Blackwater as we make progress past Bradwell power station and Mersea island, there is a ship anchored with a red hull and a large radio mast.  This is the Ross Revenge which is the boat that used to broadcast Radio Caroline in the North Sea during the Eighties.  This was after the first Radio Caroline ship, Mi Amigo, had sunk which is remarkably similar to the story for the “The Boat That Rocked”, although apparently this is a coincidence! So a little bit of history to enjoy as you sail past.  There are then a large number of moored boats before you get to the anchorage at Osea Island.  We arrive shortly before 6pm, right on low water, and with only five other boats spread around the anchorage find a good spot and start to drop anchor. In one respect arriving at low water has the advantage of simplifying the calculations for the anchor chain although it does mean that we did not benefit from the tide at any stage!

We anchor in a shade over three metres of water with another three metres being added for high tide.  We deploy about twenty five metres of chain and our long snubber although on this occasion I forget to attach the anchor ball to the anchor to help with location and retrieval in an emergency.  Time to relax again, as the sun goes down and out comes the Prosecco and the raspberry gin – hmmm, theme developing here.  Our friends are at Brightlingsea listening to music and send us a video, the singing doesn’t sound the best if we’re honest and doesn’t compare to the band we can hear on Osea Island where there must be a wedding or large summer party.  It’s a lovely, still, warm evening as we settle down.  For the second night, the fishing rods are shut firmly in their carrier and my Dad FaceTimes us and we talk for ages and Bonnie chills on deck.

Later that evening, Clyde is practicing his party trick.  Maria has taught him to do a high five for treats, he likes to practice this a lot and he has the girls wrapped around his little paw! He gets treats.

It is an earlier night since we had a late one the previous night and lots of sea air and we are falling asleep long before midnight, although Clyde is now being a bit cheeky and trying his “come to bed” eyes on Lisa!

The next morning is clear with very light winds, which is pretty much as expected.  It looks like we will have to motor-sail most of the way home.  Leaving at a similar time as the previous day means we will gain the full benefit from the tide in the wallet, although we are keen to get away a little earlier so in the river we will still be fighting the tide.  The wind has picked up a but and we have a quite useable 15knots of wind which will be directly behind us as we go up the wallet.  So the plan is to motor-sail up the Blackwater, tiptoe around the Colne Bank before switching off the engine and sailing all the way home.

We set off and are accompanied by jetskis for the first part of our journey, this is one of the disadvantages of the anchorage as well as the water skiers, but they don’t do it for long and it just spoils the tranquility for a short time.  We are making good progress and arrive in the wallet as the tide turns.  For a short period the water is confused and fighting both itself and the wind but it soon works it all out and with engine off and tide with us we are sailing up the wallet at 7+ knots.  There are a few boats around us and Maria is not a racer by any means but similar to Gandalf – “You shall not pass” – when she is sailing.  There is one boat behind us with their coloured cruising chute out but they are falling behind as we start to catch up with a couple of smaller boats ahead of us. We travel up the wallet passing Walton, Frinton and Clacton which all look very different from the sea.

We are starting the turn towards Felixstowe and the wind is now directly behind us which gives an opportunity to get the sails out on both sides and sail goose winged.  We always have a gybe preventer on our main if the wind is behind at all.  This stops the boom smashing across the boat which is dangerous for the crew and also not healthy for the rig.  It is something we were taught early on and it is now a habit that we have got into.  We are still going past boats and Maria is smiling and waving, she does enjoy a nice relaxed sail.  The channel from the wallet to Felixstowe is Medusa and this is pretty much due North to the entrance.  The wind has picked up and with another change of course is now more on our beam.  I had seen this coming and had reduced sail substantially because we had noticed that the wind had been growing during our sail up the wallet.  It is now blowing between 25-35 knots which doesn’t feel so bad when you are running in front of it but after turning you suddenly feel the full force and after yesterday’s fun and games, no risks are being taken.  We are bobbing along nicely with half our main out and about the same from the headsail as we are being crossed by several boats going towards the wind, a lot more uncomfortable, bouncy and heeling over with lots of sail up. We’re grateful that we don’t need to worry about that for the rest of this journey but as we enter Felixstowe harbour, my mind does start to wander to an hour and a half away when we could be trying to get into our berth with a gusting 25-35 knot wind!  One to worry about closer to the time. This is also the time that Maria likes to get the roast dinner on, a couple of hours later we will be ready for it…

There is a large modern Southerly yacht, trying to catch us as we gently sail up the Orwell but Maria is having none of that and we hold them off until they take their sails down to go into one of the river marinas.  Its a lovely sail up the river with the wind starting to die but we are able to keep the sails up until we get close to the Orwell bridge.  Some people get frustrated at the time it takes to get through the lock and into your home berth but we find this all part of the fun and there is no major delay although we are asked to let one of the commercial boats, Orwell Lady, go into the lock first.  They must be more worried about hitting us than us hitting them :).  The two boats are the only ones in the lock and the wind has died down completely now so I had nothing to worry about.  I also clearly didn’t have anything to worry about as Maria completes the turn towards our berth and brings Mariadz home nice and gently.  I am able to get the lines on easily and the engine is off very quickly.

With the boat tied, tidied up and everything settled down, I dropped the worms over the side and fed the crabs …… again 😦

We have spent the last two weekends away, firstly in Lymington, attending a seminar about blue water cruising and then to Italy to pay taxes, speak to builders and check out the house.  We therefore decided that we would have a weekend away somewhere quiet and decided that a few nights in the River Stour would allow us both to relax and chill.  It would also work out because we were expecting to see my son, Matt, over the weekend and it would be easy to pick him up from Harwich.  Maria still had to work on Friday but we decided to leave on Thursday since our setup allows her to work from home wherever we are.

It’s a beautiful evening as we head down the River Orwell and start to discuss where to stop.  We can either pick up a mooring buoy at Levington or anchor either at the bottom of the River Orwell or the top of the River Stour. We decide to keep going to the anchorage opposite Harwich Parkeston Quay at the top of the Stour adjacent to Shotley.  The trip down is mostly uneventful except Maria starts to think the engine doesn’t sound “right”. I go below and notice on the electrical panel that we are charging the batteries intermittently. This is changing the tone of the engine which is what Maria heard. I start to investigate and everything seems to be ok as we continued but I recognise that we will have a job to do when we return understanding why the charging is not consistent. As we pass Shotley we notice our good friends the Thompson family from Ipswich, coming back up river. They have taken on an amazing project and are living aboard while they renovate their boat before going off travelling. It is an ambitious project but they are committed and we are really pleased to think of them as friends.

We anchor in a familiar spot and have a quiet evening. The traditional arrival drink, a beer, is ready and this time in our new hand painted glasses!  We also got some good news about a potential new role for me so all is right in our world as we settle down to a dinner of steak.

The next day starts well from a weather perspective and I am checking over the boat as Maria works.

I even break out the hammock that we have had for eighteen months and think about how to rig it.  Maria has always been worried about the pressure on the headsail of rigging it to there, which we have seen a number of times previously. I had noticed that Simon Thompson had rigged a spinnaker line to take the vertical pressure from this setup and thought by using two spinnaker lines and a cleat I could rig this so that both the horizontal and vertical pull was held by two different lines, sounds perfect in principle.  The other end could be held on a masthead cleat and I have been able to set up the hammock in a way acceptable to her majesty, siting on her throne at the chart table.

Between work calls, I am able to distract Maria enough to get her to try out my new setup (having checked it first, can you imagine the trouble I would be in if it failed!). Maria agrees to give it a go. I have video evidence. I also seem to have a court order which bans me from sharing said video evidence.

Anyone who has read about our rib will know one of the main issues we were trying to address was to allow Maria to get in and out with some decorum since she seemed to spend most of her time in an inflatable lying on her tummy with her bum in the air! She also struggled to get out of the Lotus Elise when we had it, with a common outcome being a loud thump and Maria picking herself up off her hands and knees….in front of a packed pub garden. Cool. So with much noise Maria gets into the hammock and we are all good…the camera is still rolling….she starts to get out.  Let’s just say that the first thing to hit the floor was her left hand, and she tried to get out on the right hand side. The final shot of the video that you are not allowed to see is Maria reversing back to the camera as she stands up….. close up and fade to black! I don’t think the court papers specifically excluded a description of the events. If they did my next blog will be from a police cell.

It gets towards the end of the day and Maria is finishing work. The anchorage is nice but is opposite a commercial port with ferries coming in and out infrequently. if we head down the river, it is very quiet under the Royal Hospital School. It’s been a glorious day but some clouds are to the west of us where we are heading. Maria points out that they look pretty evil but I check the wind direction which is gently blowing towards these clouds and point out that unless they are going against the prevailing wind direction, we’ll be fine….. Maria is not one to say I told you so but within ten minutes the rain is lashing down, the wind has turned and it is blowing over 30 knots.  Not the best weather to go on the foredeck and put out the anchor. We decide to float around while the thunderstorm passes, Maria also points out that where we were is still bathed in sunshine and it wasn’t her idea to move!  She points this out quite vociforously. With limited visibility, I take over the boat and decide to check out exactly where we will be anchoring when the weather improves. Quite a few people ask us about how the cats are on the boat, particularly when we are doing longer journeys or the weather isn’t good.  Bonnie and Clyde have grown up around boats and are very relaxed, on passages they will generally be in the cockpit with Maria and I or asleep downstairs.  You can see how stessed they were at the height of the storm.  It isn’t long before the thunder stops, well after three storms roll through, and the weather starts to improve and Maria takes over so that i can set up our anchor gear.
We have to reset the anchor because we weren’t quite where we wanted to be and at low tide it gets a bit shallow in the bay under the hospital school.  Finally we are set up, anchor float attached to the anchor with a line that can be used to retrieve the anchor. Ten metre snubber line to ease the strain on the boat and anchor, and several other snubbers making sure that even if we have a problem the windlass is never exposed to the yank of the chain.  Anchor ball up and we are ready for our evening. When the rain was lashing down earlier, we had taken a look at our BBQ food and thought we may be in trouble here! With the change in weather we decided to have a Thai dinner rather than cooking in the rain and wind.

We settle down down for a quiet evening, Mariadz style… it was probably around 11pm when Maria decided she wanted to listen to music. Oh dear! The Louisa Johnson song where she laments that it was only ten how did it get to three, could have been written for Maria…..obviously three is just the start and if Louisa wanted accuracy she would probably have gone for five or six! This night is no exception and despite a couple of attempts to get her to go to bed, it is “just one more song” until 5am when Maria makes egg and bacon sandwiches before going to bed as most of our (sensible) friends are starting to wake up. Later that day, we are “hanging”. It’s a lovely day, but a bit breezy. However, my hangover is not shifting and I go back to bed for a little while. While I am asleep, Maria chats to Amanda Furber, and agrees that we should all get together – I just need to pick them up from Harwich (4 miles away) in the rib like I am a taxi! I’m still not in a great state but I am sure the river ride will sort that out! While deploying the rib, there is a momentary stutter from the Davits as the motor stops and just clicks.  But it comes back, so another one to put on the list of things that need to be checked.  Just before leaving, Maria asks me how we are doing for fuel.  On the rib, we have the main tank that feeds the engine and a reserve five litre can which is always full.  The wind is blowing down the river towards Harwich and there is quite a swell.  This doesn’t bode well for the return journey but getting there should be fine. We have only done a few miles so I’m sure the fuel is fine…..of course I get a mile downriver and the engine cuts out as the main tank is empty! so it’s lift the seats get the two cans out and transfer fuel from the reserve to the main tank, all while being rolled around, beam onto the waves. Refuel complete, I can restart the engine and get to Halfpenny pier to pick up my fare. Amanda and Mark are waiting on the pier when I arrive.  I throw the rubbish into the bins and am ready to go. But Mark has a cunning plan, he will drive the car to Wrabness, slightly up river from us and I can get him there, it will be a shorter journey. Amanda joins me in the rib and we start to head off back to Mariadz.  I may have mentioned that it was blowing 15-20 knots and the waves are quite deep, probably a metre from the tip to the bottom. We are making progress but it is not particularly comfortable.  On the way to collect Amanda, I had remained dry for the entire journey, that wasn’t the case on the return.  Amanda acted as a good water and wind break but I still got wet.  Her back was also aching from the constant banging up and down and together we arrived at Mariadz wet and tired. Reading that last sentence back I should probably reiterate that this was a journey in the rib and nothing rude! I drop off Amanda and call Mark to find out where he is.  He is on the far side of Wrabness with the beach houses and the mooring buoys. He has waded out to knee height as I approach and climbs in and we have a comfortable ride back to the boat with the wind and waves at our backs.  On return to Mariadz, we go to the stern and decide to lift the rib back onto the Davits to avoid the rib banging the back of the boat overnight.  We are clipped on but the stutter we had previously seems to be here to stay and the davits wont work.  The rib is up enough for overnight and we decide to check it out in the morning.

I can now do the barbecue we have been promising ourselves and we all settle down to a lovely evening in the cockpit chatting, eating and drinking.  Mark is quite tired and bails responsibly early, i.e. before midnight, but Amanda has the bit in her teeth…. and a few drinks in her tummy. It is 3am (again) when we eventually all decide it is time for bed – someone will be feeling a little worse for wear tomorrow.  The next morning we are up reasonably early since we need to get Mark and Amanda back to Wrabness.  At this stage, Mark and I are beginning to think that since I added the 5 or 6 litres of fuel into the tank we have travelled six miles to and from Harwich and a couple of miles return to Wrabness which is now being repeated.  It should be fine…. and I will fill up both tanks when I return to Ipswich.  We get enough from the davits to drop the rib again but they are still playing up.  It is a bit calmer for the journey back to Wrabness and I am able to drop them off quite close to the beach at high tide and they wade back in.

Now for the return journey to Ipswich.  We are still getting nothing from the davits which appears to be an electrical problem, potentially something shorting out.  I have checked in the control box and everything seems fine in there, no loose connections and voltage where I would expect it but I am no expert.  Maria and I decide that we will have to tow the rib back and work it out over the next few days.  We hardly ever tow a rib so we have a large mooring line to do the tow and two back up lines…a bit belt and braces, especially when the mooring line also has a shock absorber built in!

I go to lift the anchor, having previously checked that the davits electrical problem wasn’t impacting the windlass.  This is reasonably uneventful and the anchor comes up surrounded by approximately a two foot ball of mud and weed!  It is a sight.  I call Maria to come and take a look with Mariadz on autopilot and tracking down the middle of the Stour.  As we return from the bow, Maria notices more white smoke than is usual coming from our exhaust.  We check the temperature of the engine and it is above the normal working temperature.  We reduce revs as I go down below to check out what is going on in the engine room. I am greeted by quite a warm engine room. At the best of times the engine room is a “no shirt zone” and this was hotter than usual.  The water strainer on the aft bulkhead is completely green inside and it seems obvious that this is blocking water getting through to the engine.  I explain the situation to Maria and we decide to get some sail up quickly and switch the engine off while I try and fix it.  The clear lids on water strainers on Marine engines are great things, they allow you to see exactly what is going on.  However, they do have a tendency to stick fast, especially if there has been any heat.  Needless to say I can’t budge it.

I phone every chandlery along the Orwell to see if they have the specific devise designed to remove these covers but none have it.  Our friends on facebook, where Maria had updated, are trying to make suggestions: hot water over the top of the cover to make it easier to shift, wd40 under the lid to try and budge it and a wet cloth to get a better grip.  Nothing is working.  Since there is no water in there, perhaps a vacuum has formed so loosen the feeder pipes and let the vacuum out before trying all of the above again.  still nothing working.  On Cliff Elgar’s advice, I try to wrap a line around the lid with a view to pulling and twisting the lid off.  Again I am unsuccessful.  By this time, Mark and Amanda have called us to offer some assistance and some tools!  We agree that Maria and I will go along to Levington, pick up a mooring ball and meet them there.  After 45 minutes of eventful sailing, a regatta of 50 odd boats was coming the other way and not really thinking about how we were going to pass between them, we arrive at Levington.  Maria approaches the buoy perfectly with me midships as her spotter calling down the distance and angle of approach. In fact she sits Mariadz there so perfectly I could have had a cup of tea while I threaded the line and took it back to the bow to tie off.  Once settled, I get in the rib and head to the marina to meet Amanda and Mark.  They have stopped at Halfords and bought various tools that should give us a grip.  They also have their dog, Milly with them, and most importantly a new 5 litre can of petrol for the rib!  The four of us head back to Mariadz so that we can start to fix the problems.

Unfortunately the water strainer is being stubborn, none of the tools that Mark had brought were shifting it and we decided to review the rope technique again. With one minor adjustment, suggested by Mark, we had a better grip and the top started to move. In the end we had a loop in the end and the other end passed through this, this was then placed around the edge of the lid with the loop on the left hand side.  The pull would then tighten and then move the knot anti-clockwise.  With both of us pulling we start to budge the lid.  We can now see the jumble of weed that is in the strainer, we clear this out, put everything back together and are happy that we have fixed the problem.  Engine start and check the flow of water……negligible. oh dear, engine off. We should probably check the impeller.  On the yanmar engine, in common with a lot of marine installations, the impeller is in a very awkward place where I have to unscrew panels to access the impeller and even then I am going under the engine and reaching up to the vertical plate.  Our new lighting in the engine room is great but doesn’t get to this area which is still quite dark and you cant actually see it anyway because of its location.  So you are groping around in the dark and you have to feel your way (as Olivia Newton John would say).  It’s four bolts so release those, catch them so they don’t fall in the bilge (virtually inaccessible if they fall), as the last one goes, remember to catch the plate (similar bilge access issue!).  I have the plate off and a firm grip of all the parts so we can see the impeller, it looks fine and moves as it should.  Lets put it back together then.  Plate in place, don’t drop anything, hand tighten four bolts and then tighten with the spanner, 1, 2, 3, snap! Now that’s unfair, one of the bolts has sheered but at least the other three are on tight which should stop any leaks. Another job for when we are back in our berth.

So we have established that the engine is trying to draw water in, and the problem has to be at the other end where the water comes into the boat.  We decide we need to check the through hull.  Take off the two jubilee clips and lift the pipe off the through hull….nope.  That aint moving either! We have applied heat from Maria’s super hairdryer but still no progress.  Eventually and with a rolling hitch we have successfully attached my trusty, water-strainer-lid-remover rope to the pipe and it does it’s magic!  With the pulling of two of us we are able to get the pipe off the through hull.  Now lets see if we have any water coming through the through hull or whether the problem is in the pipe.  Open the through hull, just for a second, we don’t want to sink… a dribble of water comes out.  We could leave this open for weeks before we would need to worry about the boat sinking.  So there is a blockage on the though hull outside of the boat.  So two techniques, firstly, wire hanger to clear any hard objects and the large brush under the boat from the rib to scrape away any weed.  We test the engine and we have flow and a six inch piece of weed goes straight into the strainer!  At least we know what happened.  Having removed this, the lid comes off without the threat of “the rope”, and put everything back together again we’re ready to go.

I drop Amanda, Mark and Milly back at the marina so that they can go for a walk and return to Mariadz for the last part of our epic journey home.  We start up and everything is looking good, but within 200 metres the temperature is starting to rise and again we need to slow the engine down.  By staying between 1,000 and 1,500 revs we can keep the temperature under control, less than 100, and we limp back to Ipswich slowly.  This gives Maria time to cook a roast dinner for when we arrive – an advantage of having a great cook for a wife!

Coming into the lock is interesting, Maria has the boat well placed but, after she has stopped, I have to move the rib out of the way before I can bring the stern in.  Everything is tied off, including the rib.  Coming into the berth, one of our neighbours, Peter, offers to help and I throw him a bow line and ask him to tie it to the end of the pontoon so that we can use it as a spring to keep the boat under control while I tie her off.  We’re in and safe and Maria has the engine off before I have finished tying us off, she has confidence in her man!

We can now inspect the damage over the next few days and fix everything….but first time for a lovely roast dinner.

We had such a good time at Easter that we have been keen to get the boat back out again.  This bank holiday weekend coincided with the sad anniversary of the death of Maria’s Dad and so we decided we wanted to be close to Harwich where her step-Mum lives.

Early in the week, the weather prediction was for a light northerly, turning southerly on Friday.  We decided at that stage that Halfpenny pier or anchoring in the Stour would be our getaway this weekend.  We would hopefully be able to persuade Jean, Maria’s step-Mum, to come on the boat and possibly even go for a gentle sail down the Stour – it would be her first time on the boat and I believe her first time sailing. So our plan is to leave on Friday, go to Halfpenny Pier for the night, pick up Jean on Saturday morning and take her down the Rover Stour, anchor for lunch, little bit of fishing and a relaxing sail to back to Harwich. If it is too busy, we will anchor close and the next day, I will take her in on the rib bback to Harwich before heading back to Ipswich during Sunday.  This will be in time for Kristy, our daughter, to see us Sunday night and Matthew, our son, to come round on Monday. A sort of busy, relaxing family weekend if you know what I mean.

Whenever we go to the Stour, Maria wants to go fishing, and I don’t mean the dating app for any youngsters reading!  This normally means that I end up spending between £10-£20 on bait, we either don’t fish or don’t catch anything and end up feeding the crabs with the rest of the bait at the end of the weekend.  However, my cunning ploy for Easter weekend was to buy frozen bait! Maria didn’t fish at all that weekend but that means that I don’t need to buy more bait this weekend in a place she traditionally likes to fish.

During the week, we had Lindsay from Seapower over to review the engine after her weekend workout and also to discuss the next stage of our engine refurbishment – replacing the fresh water and raw water hoses which are original and have clearly had some heat through them (at least once by us when the fresh water system was inadvertently drained when the hot water boiler was changed).  This will be in a later blog post. Needless to say our Yanmar got a clean bill of health and we are confident that she is in good shape now (touch some wood) and will be even better when we have finished our fettling of her!

So, it’s Friday night and I return from an afternoon meeting for some frantic running around prior to getting through the lock and down to halfpenny pier. We are closing on low water which should mean the tide is reasonably slack when we arrive. We have a lovely sail down the Orwell as the sun reaches the horizon. In fact Bonnie is taking her “watch” very seriously keeping a look out for traffic and dangers. However, we are late and sunset, in our wake, is a full half hour before we arrive.

When I’d called earlier in the day, the pier was clear and I had been told that we should moor on the west end of the pier.  Now we arrive there is a 40 foot boat on the pier where we should be with two other smallish boats taking up the rest of the space. I am able to call out to the boat and explain the situation.  They tell me that they have also been told to moor here but I suspect that this is a bluff. We explain that will be fine and we will raft our 54 foot against their 40 foot boat! Alternatively they can raft up next to us, much more sensible.  They decide to come off the pier to raft up to us but eventually decide to occupy the ferry berth.  Since we are a little bit later than expected, we decide to approach the pier into the incoming tide, but with strong winds blowing us off the pier it is a tricky approach, especially in the dark. There is also a small yacht on the other half of the pier so we only have a smallish gap to aim at. Maria is taking her time, and the people from the other yacht come over to help us. They ask us to throw them a line and I am loath to until Maria has manoeuvred Mariadz nearer the pier but eventually throw a mid line with instructions to tie it to the bollard at the end of the pier so Maria can use it as a spring.  It gets tied off half way down the pier on a railing and too close to the other yacht to be of use, if Maria powered forward and relied on it to get her into the pier, she would hit the other yacht.  One of the other yachties asks me to throw a bow line which I do.  In retrospect I should have asked for that to be tied further down the pier so that we could use that as a spring but instead the yachtie gives an almighty pull on the bow and nearly makes us hit the pier.  Maria hears my call for the bow thruster and pulls the bow away from the pier.  Eventually, and it does take some time, Mariadz gets manhandled closer to the pier and I can get onto the pier and sort out how I think we get her in properly. I am able to bring a second mid line with me and I get this on and Maria can then use this to bring the stern in.  We are now on the pier and safe, with some tidying up to be done of the lines.  This is all done quite quickly and we are comfortable. It is late though, at nearly 9:30pm we are late. Too late to cook. We have been meaning to go back to the Thai on the Quai, which is excellent, but unfortunately they are refurbishing until mid-May 2017, so we decide on a Chinese, but that is a twenty minute walk away and for some reason, despite their website saying an 11pm close, they will not be able to fit us in unless we arrive in ten minutes.  So fish and chips it is then, since we are going to the Alma on Saturday.

The next morning, I am up reasonably early and I get to spend a little time chatting to Mike, one of the harbour masters and also the person that I had spoken to the previous day about berthing on the pier.  We mention what happened the night before but the other yacht has got away early and didn’t bother to pay, hmmmm the problem with the honesty system I discussed during our Easter trip. Mike remembers us from previous visits and reminds us to make sure the boat is locked with the keys away, not because of any crime issue in Harwich, just because he likes Mariadz and would be tempted to take her out :). Mike’s also part of the RNLI at Harwich which is one of the charities we always give to, hopefully not for selfish reasons! We hope we never need their help but what they do, and the bravery they show, is amazing. I mention to Mike our plans for the weekend with Jean and he says he will put out the “no mooring” signs so that our berth is protected if we go out.  The wind is blowing a southerly at 15-20 knots, perfect for a little sail down the Stour and back, but it will be Jean’s first time on the boat and we don’t want to run before we can walk.

At lunchtime on Saturday, Jean arrives and begins to get acquainted with the boat, we’re having a pleasant time and so we decide to raincheck the day sail and do it another time. At this stage we are the only people on the pier. Toward the back end of the day Queen Galadrial, a Thames barge, takes her place on the outside of the pier.  Apparently she is normally at the west end but today she takes up the space between us and the ferry berth. As she is coming right at you with the battering ram that is her bowsprit, you hope that they stop before they hit you.  Needless to say there is nothing to worry about and she finishes a metre off of Mariadz’s bow.

We always have a lovely time in Harwich, it is a wonderful old town with lots of back streets and pubs :), similar to Queenborough, that we visited a few weeks ago, or Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight. The local fisherman also come in with lobster and crab.  We are strangely conflicted here because the lobster will be amazing but when you are sailing you have to be very careful of the, sometimes poorly marked, lobster pots. So one minute you are celebrating the fishermen and at other times you are cursing them. On the whole though, the lobster is too good to miss out on, and the fishermen are always very good with their boat handling, so respect and gratitude is due. Today in Harwich, we had another “water-user” too. A group of jet-skis came in from the sea entrance. In common with a lot of things, there were two types of person in this group. The responsible, considerate person wearing a helmet and the idiot with the fountain of spray from their exhaust, that didn’t seem to notice or care, where their spray or wake went. One thing we have learnt is that this second type of inconsiderate person are always around, unfortunately. They go without causing too much noise or trouble but it is unusual to see the two types of person in one group, in an often criticised form of water sport. Other yachts, and passers by, come and go and we also have the regular ferry journeys to Felixstowe and Shotley. It is always interesting to catch up with these people and to understand their stories as well as discuss our hopes and plans. Around about lunchtime on Sunday, Jean has to go home, but we all agree it has been a nice time and a good first meeting with Mariadz.  Jean has promised to return and we will take her sailing and also get her behind the wheel.

I had spoken to Mike earlier in the day, and it looked like the weather was going to get worse, no rain, but the wind was increasing. Maria and I decide we will leave early afternoon and sail up the river with the gusty south easterly behind us. However the winds are gusting well over thirty knots and so we decide that we will only have a third of the main and the headsail out, this means a little slower progress but also means that a strong gust will not overpower us. As we enter the River Orwell, we make the turn past Felixstowe towards Levington and the wind is nicely on our beam. Even with little sail, and no engine, we are bounding along at eight knots with just a little help from the river. As we go up river, the wind angle does present some challenges though. One of the things we have been taught, and learnt well, is to rig a gybe protector. This is required if the wind is behind you, because a relatively small shift of the wind can catch the other side of the mainsail, smashing the boom across the boat. This is dangerous for people – do not get your head in the way of a flying boom – and also for the boat, because of the power being thrown around and the potential impact on the rig. So we tie a line from the back of the boom tightly to the forward mid-cleat on that side which is enough to stop the boom crashing across if the wind shifts. Of course coming up a river with hills, trees etc, there are lots of wind channels that can throw the direction of the wind so we always rig this as a precaution.  We are having a lovely, and safe, sail up the river, in fact we are working quite hard, as we tack the headsail around from time to time, sometimes goosewinged, with the two sails on opposite sides of the boat, and sometimes sailing with both sails on the same side. Progress, since that first tack with the wind on the beam, is slower and we take a couple of hours to get up the river. Obviously not so slow that another cruising yacht overtakes us….Maria wouldn’t stand for that but still slower than we are accustomed.  As we approach the lock there is no let up in the gusts, which means that Mariadz is being pushed away from the pontoon in the lock, but Maria has it all under control.

During our time sailing we have listened to many people for hints and tips.  When seeing Queen Galadrial, the other day, I had seen a line from the bow being put on the pontoon cleats first (a bow spring), which then allows the helm to steer away from the pontoon, bringing the stern in while the bow is held close to the pontoon. This gives lots of time to get the other lines on irrespective of what the wind is doing.  I have seen this done before by many people and it avoids the problem of “losing” the bow, or stern, without the need for a bow thruster. This is a development on the technique we were taught early on of getting a mid-cleat line to shore first because it will limit the movement of the boat and act as a pivot point. It would also have helped us out with the mooring at Harwich earlier in this trip. I decide that I can test this technique without jeopardising our normal mooring technique.

We enter the lock, Maria has Mariadz positioned beautifully as we approach.  Unfortunately the line I chose for the test had a shock absorber, which is heavy rubber. This stops me being able to get the line on a cleat, so I quickly abandon the experiment and we moor as usual without any stress.

Today, because we have had a winter of using the generator, we have to fill up with fuel which means going onto the fuel pontoon which will have the gusting wind directly behind it. A second opportunity for a test :). As we come out of the lock, Maria is going slow so I can swap the lines and fenders to the other side.  I decide to experiment again but change the line to one that does not have a heavy rubber weight. As we approach the fuel pontoon, there is a large (50-60 foot) motor boat at the end which limits our space to approximately 60 feet, and we need that much just to fit on without hanging off the end. Again Maria is in control as we bring her in and the approach is nice and slow. I am able to step off the boat onto the pontoon and put the bow spring on. Unfortunately it is too long and would not stop us before we hit the motor boat but I have quickly put on the mid line, as usual and we are soon in and tied off, waiting for fuel. While we are waiting for fuel I review the length of our bow spring and adjust the length for our third and final attempt of the day. With an additional 470 litres of fuel on board (2/3rds of a tank), we pull off the fuel pontoon with help from Tim, who fuelled us, and Maria gets Mariadz away from the pontoon and ready for the approach to our home berth.

It is true that Maria may have “mentioned” two failed attempts to “try something new” and had raised whether it was sensible to be trying this on a gusty day with the wind blowing us away from our pontoon and onto our very nice neighbours boat.  People who know Maria will probably have an idea of how this was “mentioned”. That said, Linda and Peter next door, had set their fenders and had told us not to worry about laying alongside them while we sort ourselves out.  However, we don’t want to be in that position if we can help it and I know that the bow spring will help….if I can get it right. Maria approaches our berth and is perfectly positioned. One of our other friendly neighbours, Mark (we are lucky on B pontoon at Ipswich haven) comes to offer a hand. I give him the bow line while I step off with the spring and mid line. As Mariadz starts to get caught by the wind, I have the spring line on, and as previously discussed call for Maria to go forward and turn away from the pontoon. Magically, the boat moves closer to the pontoon and stops going forward as the stern comes in. The mid line is now on and I go to the stern to get the line to finish tying her off. We are in perfectly and haven’t touched our neighbours, despite strong 20+ knots of cross wind. We also have another new technique for bringing Mariadz in that we know works – I mark the line to make sure we know where it needs to go to get the manoeuvre right in future ;).

It is the end of the sailing for this weekend, and now for some family time 🙂

Most years our season starts sometime in March but again this year the weather hasn’t been great and also we have had some things we needed to do so our season hasn’t started until the Easter weekend. That is more than six months since we last went out and we have had some work done on the engine since then.

As part of our preparation for going, Lindsay from Seapower spoke to us and wanted to come on board to do a full engine and generator test before we start the season. We all knew it was probably unnecessary but we agreed it was for the best. For a couple of hours we ran the engine in gear to test that there were no leaks, excessive smoke or problems with the drive train. The Yanmar performed fine, with little smoke considering she hadn’t been run for quite a while. Then onto the Onan generator which started easily and purred like Clyde eating prawns! This was all done late afternoon on the Wednesday and it gave us the opportunity to get down the river and moor against Halfpenny Pier in Harwich for the night. This starts the break early and knocks 90 minutes off the journey by the time you have negotiated the lock and transited the River Orwell. After stocking up on essential supplies, our first time through the lock for ages is uneventful, although we are clearly a little rusty and the tying up on the pontoon in the lock isn’t quite as unhurried and calm as usual as we get slightly blown on and Maria has to make a couple of adjustments to get us away from the pontoon and then back on it. After a long time in the lock (there is a lot of water to move), we are on our way.

The wind is shifting from NW to West and so we motor down the Orwell at the speed limit of 6 knots. From an instrument perspective we have no log – I didn’t clean it before we left and some crustaceans have obviously blocked up the wheel. We also have no wind instruments for some reason, I suspect that there is a problem at the top of the mast and the windex was not replaced when we did everything else. Our wind guide is our ensign, it gives us direction and depending on how full of wind it is we can guess the wind strength. We have had to do this on a “sailing holidays” boat before so we are not worried about it at all, Mariadz will tell us if she isn’t happy with the wind. There is nothing on the river at this time, a couple of hours before sunset, and it is very peaceful.

I had spoken to Nick, one of the harbourmasters at Harwich and he said that we can use the ferry berth if the pier is full because we are away early in the morning. We also have to post our overnight fee through his door – you have to love the trust and honesty system on the East coast of the UK. We pass Felixstowe and start heading to Harwich to find the outside of Halfpenny Pier completely empty. Maria approaches into the tide and wind and gently ferry glides Mariadz onto the pier and I tie her off. The wind is actually a fair bit stronger than we expected, blowing around 15-20 knots, so actually it is not as if we really need to tie her off, she is pinned against the pier anyway. Still tied off and with all fenders on the pier side, we are ready to get changed for dinner.

Maria has booked us into the Alma in Harwich for dinner and we have enough time to make ourselves presentable and head into town. The Alma has a really nice atmosphere and the food is excellent, especially their steaks and lobster. At the next table we meet a couple who are moored on the inside of Halfpenny Pier. Now a lot of people will take their dog into a pub or beer garden but these two had their three cats in the pub with them. All five of them were staying on a twenty footer which he’d described as his yacht when they met. I don’t think it was quite what she was expecting when she first went aboard but they seemed very happy and we had a lovely chat. The cats may also have got a few treats from the kitchen too 🙂 I’m not sure it is anything we can do with Bonnie and Clyde but the cats were really well behaved, happy and loved. At the end of another gorgeous meal, we returned to the boat and settled down for the night ready for our early start the next day and the trip down to North Kent.

At 7:30am, a little later than planned, we pull away from Halfpenny Pier and set out to the North Sea for the crossing of the Thames Estuary. Our routing is to head south through the Medusa channel, avoiding Cork Sands and the shallow Stone Banks, before crossing above Gunfleet sands, with its huge windfarm, to head down the Kings Channel to Barrow Deep which gives you a pretty direct south west line to the River Medway. The wind is blowing westerly at about 15 knots and the sky is clear, so pretty much perfect conditions for a southerly and south westerly crossing. The crew are mostly awake and ready to go although Bonnie and Clyde seem to be settling down to sleep in the cockpit and Maria is thinking about setting up for her work day on the move with a number of calls and conferences.

The Medusa channel is quite often covered with lobster pots, with very poorly marked balls or floats on the surface so you have to be vigilant as you progress through the channel to Gunfleet. We also had a quite scary experience a few years ago when we saw two strange “lobster pot” markers on either side of the channel and as we got closer we saw partially submerged floats on a fishing net strewn across the channel. An emergency ninety degree port turn put us parallel to the net and about three metres off it. Disaster averted, we were able to return to our course as we negotiated the end point of the net. Thankfully we recognised what this was in time, the question has to be asked though, why would you put a net across the main channel for south bound travel at the perfect state of tide for a southbound journey? It has made us vigilant in the Medusa channel though! On this day, progress is pretty average, despite keeping the engine running, but the tide is due to go in our favour down the Kings Channel and a couple of hours later we have made our turn south west and with a slight increase in the wind too we are soon bounding along at 8.5 to 9.5 knots under full main, full staysail and approximately 50% of our yankee headsail with the engine off. Even accounting for 1-2 knots of tide helping us along, we are still making good progress and it is a comfortable sail as Maria works in the cockpit. For the next four hours we are making good progress and cover 30 miles to put us squarely in the mouth of the Thames and pointing at the mouth of the Medway. We have been reasonably relaxed about our plans and the weather isn’t perfect over the coming days with some quite strong overnight winds forecast for the back end of the weekend. We decide we will anchor out for the first couple of days and then spend a day or two in a marina. We have had Chatham recommended to us a few times with its historic yard and museum and I call in to see if and when they can fit us in. Unfortunately there is no room at the Inn :(. We decide that we will anchor out as agreed and then work out what we are doing after that. As we proceed South West, we go past a large fort, the Knock John Maunsell Army Fort which looks like a bouncer guarding the Thames and is similar to Sealand, the principality in the North Sea that we often end up sailing around if we go across the channel. These were anti-aircraft platforms during the war apparently but look imposing structures on guard permanently and should be painted black for the full doorman effect. Fortunately it looks like our name is on the list so we can keep going. After this you see the Maunsell Navy Forts which look like Martian tripods from War of the Worlds but from our angle it looks like one has been ostracised – not quite sure what it said but it looks very sorry for itself. It still takes another hour and a half for us to get into the River Medway and as we enter the river we see several yellow buoys and some masts protruding through the water. This is the SS Montgomery, a munitions ship that sank in 1944 and still has 1,400 tonnes of explosives on board. We’ll tip-toe past that then! We are now looking for the creeks since we have decided to anchor in one of the creeks in the Kent marshes. We go into Stangate Creek so that we can find Sharfleet Creek which gets quite shallow at low water with a six metre tidal range at this time and we are pretty much at high tide so it looks very inviting. We have decided to anchor in one of the “holes” which is charted at 4 metres and so should have something like 8 or 9 metres of water at the time we are there. We’re intending to stay for some time so I deploy our heavy rocna anchor in the middle of the hole with forty metres of chain. The thought was that this would give us four times the maximum depth when the wind was likely to be blowing 15-20 knots. The other side though is that when we are around low tide with four metres of water, there is a lot of chain. This has the effect of making us “wander” around a bit on the anchor, although the anchor isn’t moving. We use an app to help us when anchoring, Anchor on the iPad, which shows you a track of how you are moving around your anchor. It is important to remember to switch the app off before you move off though, or the anchor alarm starts going and you are frantically trying to work out what is going on.

Maria has been able to work a full day whilst we travelled and as it gets to the end of the day, we settle down, make our dinner, chill, chat and watch the seals bathing on the muddy banks as the water level falls.

When we arrive everything seems so flat but as the water level lowers, it seems that you are in a muddy canyon and you start to see rocky outcrops appearing from the water, top tip not to go near those when the water rises! A few other boats have come in and start fishing and a larger ketch has also come in as the tide is falling, and anchors in a deeper hole further into the creek.

It is not a late night and we are in bed reasonably early. With the anchor alarm app we use, you set a distance for triggering the alarm. When in the Stour we have generally set this at about 25 metres but of course with a wider tidal range and more chain out, this isn’t nearly enough and so the alarm goes off a few times during the night but when I check our position manually, I can see we are in a good place (and exactly where we should be).

We are not up early and during the morning we discuss our plans. We explore the idea of going to one of the other marinas in the area for when the wind picks up but we are not convinced that there are many other options for a 54 foot boat with davits (another six foot) that draws six feet (1.8 metres). We look towards the Isle of Sheppey and Queenborough Harbour and decide to “go take a look” on our rib, Connie (t/t Mariadz). We have our life jackets on and the waterproof grab bag with a torch, VHF etc and with the hand held nav system, which also fixes to the dash of the rib, we are ready to go. The trip over is not as easy as you’d think, there is a reasonably strong wind at our backs and I am trying to get the rib onto the plane, so that the trip is level and comfortable, without going too fast to make it uncomfortable. With Maria’s recent back injury, from which she is still recovering, the last thing in the world I want to do is to put her back under any pressure. Of course every time I get up on the plane, Connie picks up speed but if I try to reduce the speed she comes off the plane and starts to wallow in the swell. So I am constantly adjusting the throttle trying to keep her on the plane but not going too fast that she crashes over the waves. I also have one eye on the return journey which will be into the wind and waves, I am guessing somebody, most likely me, is going to be getting quite wet! We arrive at Queenborough and tie up Connie on the waiting pontoon while we go and have a chat with the harbour masters, Chris and Dianne who are really friendly. We explain that we are looking to come in the next day and potentially stay for a couple of days and there are a number of options: we can hang off a larger buoy, tie up to the pontoon on the other side of the river and be water-taxied in or we can stay on the harbour masters pontoon and walk ashore whenever we want. We agree that walking ashore sounds best and we are not worried if people raft up to us as long as they are considerate. Before heading off, we decide to have a quick (liquid) lunch stop and see what the town itself is like. Chris and Dianne offer to look after some of our stuff while we walk into town and we gratefully accept. “did you know there is an alarm going off in that room?”, yep that will be our anchor alarm telling us that we have drifted three and a half miles to Queenborough – must remember to disable the app when we go out on the rib! Our first impression is that Queenborough is similar to Harwich, with lots of small backstreets with older cottages, it seems very pleasant. Our first stop is the Old House at Home, which is an old fashioned pub with quite a few people in. Maria checks us in on Facebook and is told that she has checked us into the wrong one. Who knew there would be two pubs called the Old House at Home on the same island! There is a “bullsh1t corner” with a guy sitting there who we listen to intently…. The pub also has live music later in the weekend and so this looks like it could be a good place to go. We decide to wander a little further into town and see what other places are available and find the Flying Dutchman, with a name like that you have to try it… This is a lot larger and more modern with an extensive menu and a parrot (not on the menu!). A quick drink and then we really need to head back to Mariadz. It is now mid-afternoon and we agree that Maria will “drive” us home. That means that I will sit somewhere around the middle and try to help balance the boat. I am also conscious that although the grab bag is waterproof, the wet proof cover on our camera bag is not likely to help much if we are getting soaked. We had out of the River Swale to go back to our creek. Maria sets the throttle and we are going a lot faster than the journey in but certainly not maximum speed. Connie is riding the waves really nicely and we are back in the creek in no time and bone dry! I’m sure Maria will say this was due to her ability behind the wheel! It’s another great sunset in a really peaceful place but with the wind expected to pick up over the next few days we decide that we will pick up anchor first thing tomorrow and head to Queenborough.

A slightly less quiet evening, with Maria doing her “I just want to hear one song” routine, unfortunately she doesn’t seem to tell me which one song she wants and eventually I play about forty before she has had enough. We also did a whole lot of chatting and singing, a capella of Simon and Garfunkel’s, The Boxer! I’m sure a little alcohol must have been involved somewhere! Dinner is duck with Chinese pancakes (enough for four people) followed by home made Thai green curry, also enough for many people. Needless to say we enjoy the pancakes and barely touch the curry, which is lovely, and now joins other meals in the freezer waiting for us to be too lazy to cook properly.

Morning comes and we prepare to leave. I have switched off our anchor light and removed our anchor ball and then set to the anchor itself. As part of our setup we have a ten metre line with a hook that we use as an anchor snubber. This allows us to link the rope to the chain and attach the rope to our bow cleats. It reduces stress on the windlass from the pull of the boat against the anchor and softens this pull. As a backup we also have a deck mounted anchor snubber which comes into its own if there is a problem with our primary. In addition to this we have a trip line and anchor buoy. This has two advantages, firstly it is possible to retrieve the anchor if there is a problem with the chain (like it breaks!) and second it is a good way of knowing where the anchor is which can help with understanding whether the anchor is moving, or dragging. We saw this setup on a Swiss boat in Ramsgate once and decided that this was a good idea for us. It means the whole deploying and retrieving the anchor is extended but we felt the advantages outweighed this disadvantage, although all of this was about to be reviewed. We are at low tide and we know that at places this area is quite shallow at this time. However, we are keen to get away. There is also a North Westerly wind which is quite strong and blowing us towards the shallow centre and southern section. The snubber comes off quite easily and the anchor is on its way up. As the anchor comes up, it comes up to deck height, the wrong way round and so it needs to turn. I lower the anchor again and then allow the twist to free itself. Meanwhile Maria has the boat under power. The anchor turns and comes back up with a quick flick throwing Medway mud all over me and the foredeck. I set about retrieving the anchor float and am getting the ten metres of line in quite well. Unfortunately as Maria is moving forward the float drifts backwards. Maria decides to use the bow thruster for a course correction and despite having nearly all of the line in, the float won’t budge. I call to her to use the bow thruster the other way so that we can free it. She does and the float comes free with some minor damage. However, the combination of the bow thruster and the wind is moving us to starboard and towards the south of the creek….where the shallows are. Maria calls that we are getting low on depth and we quickly agree to turn hard to port, that was when we lost all motion and now we are stuck. I am quickly back in the cockpit and we discuss our options. This is potentially serious despite that we are five minutes prior to low tide (a good decision) and there will be more water lifting us momentarily. At the same time, the wind is blowing us into the shallows so we could just find ourselves being shifted further and further onto the mud as the water rises. Maria is trying to turn hard to port and using the bowthruster while I am starting to contemplate getting the rib deployed and using our anchor to kedge us off. In what seems like an age but was really just a few minutes, Maria starts to get some movement to port and we are unstuck. We now just need to make sure we don’t go slamming into the other bank, but at least that will be easier to get off 🙂 On reflection, we decide that Mariadz didn’t really run aground on the mud but was dredging a channel for smaller yachts!

We are clearly both a little shaken by our mistake but we are safe and starting to move out of the shallow creek and into the deeper creek. Apart from a minor depth alarm warning which isn’t a problem we are fine and heading into the river to head to Queenborough. Maria has to keep one eye on the chart because this part of the river looks really inviting but has some shallow areas so we do our usual and navigate by the buoys to make sure that we are always in a good place with plenty of water.

When we were at Queenborough the day before the pontoon was pretty much empty and with quite a strong tide coming in, we decide we will go past the pontoon before turning and mooring into the tide. Then we see the pontoon and they are rafted four deep next to the part of the pontoon we are meant to be approaching! But it is ok, the large motor boat at the end is coming off and so that should make it easier. Except the motor boat is going back onto the pontoon exactly where we are expected to be. We speak to Chris on the radio who tells us to raft up to the motor boat and Maria starts her approach. We are into a reasonably strong tide and with a strong wind blowing us onto the pontoon but Maria has done this kind of thing at Halfpenny Pier many times before and with a burst of bow thruster, Maria straightens up Mariadz and she nestles nicely against the motorboat where we can tie her off. At this stage, we are told that the motor boat will be leaving at 1pm and then we can move alongside the pontoon.

There is no point leaving the boat and so we contemplate our options. There is a strong tide coming in and with several yachts in a raft behind us, we agree there is no option to come out astern. Not least of all that once we are moving a little we will lose all ability to steer once we are going the same speed as the river water. Can we come off forwards? there isn’t much space and the concern here is that the motorboat has said that they intend to exit that way and so we would be getting in their way with a lot of boats on buoys just past the end of the pontoon. We continue to talk. In the end the option we go for is to turn the wheel as if we are going to starboard. Now this has the effect of moving the stern to port or away from the pontoon. You can then use the bow thruster to counteract the bow going in to the boat/pontoon and effectively come off sideways. This needs to be done with enough revs on the engine for Mariadz not to move in relation to the pontoon despite the incoming water wanting to move her astern and into the happy group of yachts behind us. We test our theory while tied up to check what happens to the stern when you turn full lock and despite a strong wind blowing us in, it looks like it will work. We explain what we are going to do and the motor boat skipper says he is intending to get out very quickly and so we will be able to stay there for a short while before we can get onto the pontoon. We start to untie the boat as Maria readies the helm. We start the manoeuvre and it is going well as we start to come off sideways. Unfortunately Maria has to come off the bow thruster for a second so she can make an adjustment and as she goes to put it back on it inadvertently flicks the other way. There is a safety cut off to stop you constantly changing the direction of the bow thruster and Maria has now been caught out by this as the wind grabs the bow and elegantly knocks it into the motor boat, fortunately not causing any damage to the motorboat. The cut off releases and Maria can get the bow thruster back on and as the bow eases away the motor boat goes out through the gap. We can then approach the pontoon in our usual way and tie off. Quickly another boat approaches and rafts up next to us but we are tied up with extra lines to shore and the rafted boat is well tied to our mid cleats and stern cleat. when we surveyed the bow we saw that we had made contact with the motorboats rubber rubbing strake (bumper) which left a black mark on our hull but there was no other damage – nothing that a little CIF couldn’t get off 🙂

We are now safe and secure and can relax since we will be here for a couple of days. The cats are relaxed as always and decide to have a little explore of the area, I’m sure Clyde is looking for mice or a pigeon to supplement his diet!

Maria and I decide to go into town in the afternoon to do some shopping and have an explore. The co-op is quite a walk and after getting the shopping we decide to break up the return journey with a refreshment break. We found people very friendly in each place we went in during our stay in Queenborough and despite having said we would be back at the boat by 5pm we were a little late. In fact, the reason for the curfew was that we were expecting one of our friends, Deanne that Maria used to work with, to join us overnight. We had decided to cook up a little Mexican menu with tortillas to start, followed by a chilli con carne with all the trimmings washed down with a cheeky Prosecco or two.

We have explained to Deanne where we are and she gets most of the way before calling in to get the last few details of exactly how to get to us. I describe the pub we went in the other day and explain that if she proceeds along the waterfront there is a car park right in front of the pontoon. After a couple of minutes my directions have apparently put her onto a footpath with bollards at the end! I go to find her…with additional instructions from Maria for some more shopping for the meal – I had forgotten a few things. I arrive at the footpath to find Deanne’s car very close to the road to the car park. Unfortunately, she has to reverse out and go around a park to get access to the road to the car park, sorry! We haven’t seen Deanne for some time and it was nice to catch up and the weather was kind so we spent most of the time in the cockpit area protected from the elements by the cockpit tent. It’s a lovely evening but in common with other times when Maria hasn’t seen a friend for a while, she will not go to bed. As the song has it, “it was only 10, how did it get to 3” and this is my life 🙂 Eventually, the girls stop chatting for long enough to realise it is probably time for bed, especially as Deanne has to collect her daughter early in the morning.

The next morning is a slow start. The cats are broken as they always are after a late night. Deanne surfaces and is over an hour late, oops! Maria cannot lift her head from the pillow. I see Deanne off and settle in the cockpit chilling and catching up. Periodically, I pop down to check on her ladyship, who is clearly broken. She isn’t able to get out of bed until 2pm and then it is tomato juice for quite a while! Maria is a traditional girl though and no Sunday would be complete without a roast dinner and this time it is roast beef. Despite her hangover, Maria excels and dinner is fantastic. We also have a couple of pleasant conversations with some of the locals including being described as “proper sailors” because of the amount of mud on our anchor! That’s one in the eye for those who criticise us for having too big a boat with too many creature comforts.

This will be our last night at Queenborough, although we will definitely return in the future. The weather is starting to get worse and some strong winds are predicted for mid-week and despite not very favourable winds, we know we need to go on Monday or we could be stuck in Kent for a number of days. Unfortunately, the tides which were so favourable for us on the way down, will work against us on the return unless we leave in the early hours or in the afternoon and arrive in darkness. Neither of those options is too appetising and so we decide that despite the unfavourable tide we will leave shortly after dawn and recognise that it will be slow. It is also not helped by a 20-30 Knot wind which has shifted round to North East, exactly the direction we will be spending most of our time going!

As part of my clearing up, I have to break down the fishing rods, which haven’t been used again despite £20 of bait being bought.  Unfortunately one of them has jammed and after trying several methods, with help from the local fisherman, we are eventually able to free the two halves by using Maria’s posh hairdryer 🙂 After they are broken up, I am having a quick chat to Chris the Harbourmaster who mentions that the other week they were catching large Sea Bass just fifty metres away from where we are standing…..and Maria hasn’t even tried this weekend…..oops 🙂  (Just as discretion is the better part of valour, I have found that cowardice is the better part of discretion and so haven’t told Maria about this.  And now she has proof read this post I can add it in 🙂 May be best not to mention it if you see Maria.)

We leave early the next morning with Maria performing a flawless departure with an audience of zero! (isn’t that always the way). The wind isn’t great and is right on the nose and as the tide turns progress is slow. The distance we covered in four hours at the start, now took us over six hours to negotiate. Maria is quite “tired”, hmmm, not going to sleep ’til late will have that effect. She spends a fair amount of her time sleeping while I am on watch. She does allow me to get some rest while she is on watch though. I say she is on watch, I think Clyde probably does as much as she does 🙂 Bonnie doesn’t like to be on the outside and when I lay down to close my eyes for a while she becomes very demanding wanting to be cuddled while I sleep. In the end I have to cuddle her, while she headbutts me and I try to rest.

The trip up Barrow Deep and the Kings Channel is monotonous and slow. We are only making three knots progress at the height of the tide against us with the wind blowing on the nose at nearly 30 knots. Mariadz can handle it and she doesn’t mind a little water over the bow, nothing will get near the cockpit anyway and we are dry, warm and comfortable despite the weather. Maybe that is why some people don’t like our sailing, we aren’t in full wet weather gear, getting lashed by the spray and wind for hours on end! We’ll just accept that we are fans of cruising rather than racing 🙂 We make the turn to the north to head into the Medusa channel and I am finally in a position to get some sail up. The tide has slightly changed and suddenly we are flying like usual with a perfect line all the way into Felixstowe harbour. We continue sailing a fair way up the Orwell river before deciding to take the sail in and motor the final leg home. The weather is clearing now and there are some lovely views as you go up the Orwell. As we proceed up the river we are  know that we are now in the last stages before we can tie up. It has felt like a long trip back. As you approach the Orwell Bridge, you need to call up to the lock so that you can get into the locked marina. Maria calls in and we are lucky to be just catching the gates before they are closed. Maria approaches warily because of the quite strong cross wind but handles the boat almost perfectly as this time she did make me jump a few feet rather than the more usual step down to the pontoon.

We come into our home berth bow first, again being blown away from the pontoon which means that I have a slight gap to negotiate as I step off and tie off our lines. There is no fuss and we tie her off.

Its been a great break and despite a little rustiness and a few mistakes we have had a rest and feel refreshed. We will learn from the mistakes but nothing was damaged and I had already cleaned off the dirty mark on the bow before we left Queenborough Harbour. As always, Mariadz behaved impeccably and looked after us despite the weather and our mistakes. Within 30 minutes of stopping, she was back to being a home, waiting for her next adventure.

So it is the midde of July and we have been out in the boat quite a few times already this year.  This has included a number of trips down the river, anchoring overnight in the stour or Orwell and returning late on Sunday.  On various of these trips we have had guests.  For the Thames Barge Weekend, Lisa and Christine joined us and we set off on Friday evening so that we could get a nice quiet spot overnight.  We were a little late…some people may not have heard the phrase “tide and time wait for no man” (or woman), so we missed freeflow through the lock. We had out and it is a little breezy but quite nice. Unusually we made a little mistake in the lock and slightly marked the hull but cif or magic sponges will get rid of the mark.  We just need to chalk it up to experience.  We decide to pick up a mooring buoy opposite Suffolk yacht harbour which is nice sheltered from the wind and settle down for the evening.

The Thames barge race is run from just down from Pin Mill out to sea and back again on this occasion and we can see the start line from our mooring.  In fact from the start line all of the Thames barges aim straight at us since we are on the inside of the first corner in the river! It gave us the opportunity to put the camera through its paces.

So we spent a few hours taking photos and fishing with wonderful views of the river and fantastic weather, by English standards. The may also have been a small bottle of Prosecco drunk as the girls all caught up having not seen each other for some time.

The sailing vessels look wonderful and completely different to the yachts you generally see so to see a number of large barges coming down together is a sight to behold.

Once all of barges had gone past, we decided to go off ourselves and pop our noses out to the North Sea for a short while before anchoring down the Stour for the afternoon for music, some fine food and “fishing”, where you dip your rod and don’t catch anything…..a bit like a good Saturday night when you were young and unattached  🙂

However, with the weather we agreed that we would try and get onto half-penny pier and caught up with the great guys there with their amazing stories – you know who you are.  On Sunday, we wandered round Harwich and eventually decided to go round the napoleonic fort.

When we returned to the boat, Maria started preparing the cocktails while Lisa and Adam started attracting “randoms” to join us and chat.  Then, Amanda and Mark arrived on their new little (and second) yacht, Bobby. They rafted up next to Mariadz and joined us for a drink.  We discussed the possibility of staying overnight, but Bobby was bumping up and down on the Easterly like Captain Pugwash’s boat, and so they decided to find themselves somewhere quiet to stay the night.  A fantastic nights sleep and then the next day we took our time and meandered up the river.

A fantastic relaxing weekend. 🙂

Maria has known her friend Kay for nearly thirty years since they both worked at securicor together with Les, the twins father. Kay and her husband John have been very supportive and good friends and anyone that knows Kay will know that she is ever so slightly bonkers, not dissimilar to Maria then 🙂 however, Maria is quite practical though….
Earlier in the week, Maria decided that her trouble with fishing (she has still not caught anything we could actually eat in two years) was probably caused by inferior equipment rather than poor technique. So she took the rods to our local fishing tackle shop, who have sold us our own body weight in bait, and asked their opinion. I was a little surprised when she came back with two new rods and tackle explaining that she now had the answer to all our fishing problems.
Kay and John are due to arrive late morning which is perfect for the tides since we will get through Ipswich lock when they have the level and drift down the river with the tide and light northerly winds (again, we have never seen such a long period with solid Northerlies). 11am and no sign of our guests. The boat is ready and the cats are getting impatient, they know we must be going somewhere so either go or let me off the boat! Half an hour later we get a call and a sorry story of locking themselves out with their phones inside and having to wait for their daughter to let them back in – it can only happen to Kay. We get everyone on board, including the cats, and set off. A few refreshers for John who is keen to learn and we safely and easily get through the lock and start to sail down the river at a very gentle pace. The weather is gorgeous, in the twenties and I need sun cream to avoid becoming a lobster. We make the turn into the Stour but not before a little hiccup when the wind does an about turn and literally goes from behind us to on the nose. More drifting gently down river before Maria declares that she wants to fish this evening and so can we get there. We find our favoured anchor spot near the cardinal under the Royal Hospital School.
Time for Maria to break out the new fishing gear and to get the ragworms ready. Now Kay is also a little squeamish, and although no vegetarian, she tells us that nothing should die…..including the worms. However, prior to this Maria has asked me to move the rod holders to the stern rail so that they point to the sides. To do so I have to loosen the bolts holding the holder to the rail attached by four bolts. Fortunately, Kay is there and ready to “cup my nuts” as I loosen and move the rod holder, thanks for your help Kay :).
Rod holders realigned and Maria and John assembled the new roads and got to catching fish, crabs or seaweed as appropriate. However, after a few hours, John hooked a really nice Sea Bass which was over the size you are allowed to keep, although subsequently we have been told you are not allowed to at this time of year. Anyway a discussion was had. Kay was firmly in the get that hook out of the fish, you are hurting it camp. Anyway, in the end and despite me reminding her how much Sea Bass costs in Sainsburys, Kay told John he had to return the fish to the river :(. Adam wasn’t happy. A few minutes later, John caught another Sea Bass which was much smaller. Despite having pretty much swallowed the hook, we were able finally to remove the hook and having checked the fish was OK in a bucket of sea water, we released it and saw it swim away. You will notice I have yet to mention Maria catching anything….

Anyway, we had a glorious evening of fantastic weather and a lovely sunset (Maria still hadn’t caught anything). Then just after sunset Maria’s line was being pulled with a heavy weight. We all looked on expectantly as Maria retrieved her line to find loads of sea weed, poor Maria didn’t catch anything else all night. We had been drinking Prosecco since we had anchored and after several bottles, Kay started to doze up in the cockpit while the rest of us chatted. A lovely evening just chatting to friends with music quietly in the background and no troubles.

The next morning, we were up at a reasonable time and Maria prepared a cracking cooked breakfast before we sailed back to Ipswich, slowly…there wasn’t much wind. The first part of the sail up the stour was into Ann Easterly wind so we tacked up river on the main and self tacking stay sail – last sailing at its best. As we turned into the Orwell the wind died even more but we drifted up river for several hours until finally we decided it was time to get moving and return home in time for a nice lunch at the Brewery Tap.

Thanks for coming to see us Kay and John and see you again soon 🙂

Our standard each year is to go down to Ramsgate or across the channel for Easter. Easter was early this year and the weather awful so that put paid to that idea. We have also just had the navigation upgraded and wanted to check this out including the AIS so we also thought that a flip down the coast and across the Thames would be better than trying to negotiate the M25 of large container ships to cross the channel with unfamiliar systems.
We chose the May bank holiday which coincided with Dunkirk Little Ships weekend. As usual Maria called, emailed and reconfirmed on the day of departure! She likes to be sure she is getting her favourite spot.
We were set for Northerlies all the way down so it looked like we would get a good sail down. At this stage the forecast was also for southerlies home so perfect.
The River Orwell is considered one of the prettiest rivers in the UK but at the start of a journey it adds one and a half hours to your journey. To reduce this we decided to leave the evening before and pick up a mooring buoy opposite Suffolk Yacht Harbour at Levington. The wind and tide are both quite strong but we had become quite dab hands at picking up these buoys even with the high freeboard that Mariadz has. We decide that we will go into the wind as we approach the buoy because it should help us to slow down…..that was my first mistake. The tide was running against the wind and Maria had no chance of stopping Mariadz. Maria has the line perfectly and I am in position with boat hook in hand. I hook the line for the buoy….that was my second mistake. The third mistake was saying it was Maria’s fault we hadn’t stopped dead when she had no chance. So there I am holding, with one arm, a boat weighing twenty tonnes travelling at 1.5-2 knots (why didn’t I wait until the boat had stopped!). Needless to say, using all my strength, I dropped the boat hook which hung onto the line for a few seconds before falling gracefully into the muddy water – a bit like Jack at the end of Titanic! That is our only boat hook so we will need to move on. Maybe halfpenny pier at Harwich will have a space? Nope two boats have moored in the middle and there isn’t quite enough room at either end to fit us in, we could ask them to move but that sounds like a lot of stress at 7:30pm and there was no guarantee they would move for us. Our final option is to anchor opposite Parkeston Quay, there is lots of room (the weather isn’t that nice) but we have confidence in our shiny Rocna and the sixty metres of equally shiny chain I put out and settle down for a peaceful night.

The next day we are up early and set off early and are at Languard cardinal, where we generally consider any voyage to begin, by 5:30. Ramsgate is about 45 miles away via Medusa through Black Deep and Fishermans Gat. There is a slightly shorter route through Foulgers Gat and the wind farm but we have never liked that route, it seems a bit tight especially when sailing, and we generally cut the corner at Fishermans Gat anyway. We put the sails up and we are pushing along at 6 or 7 knots slightly against the tide. Normally we have less sail out than most people. Although Mariadz is a strong boat she is quite happy with less heel and still goes quickly as we had found on our first weekend with her. There is a sudden gust and Mariadz heels a little bit more, we now don’t have the safety margin that we like and so decide to reef in the main and headsail. We reef in a lot and Mariadz settles into a lovely sail as the wind is building over 25 knots. We make the turn into Black Deep and we are now with the tide and a good wind, Mariadz is now hammering along at 9 knots but all is comfortable. Our sailing continues without incident through Fishermans Gat and we are approaching North Foreland. I have been working most of the way down producing a report and answering emails. It is decided I have to join a conference call at lunchtime to help people understand that a deadline is not a moveable feast and we need to make sure we hit it. We are now approaching Ramsgate having achieved an average of about 7knots throughout and I am still on the call so we decide to keep going and double back once I am ready. Fifteen minutes later I am off the call and we can make the turn through the lumpy waters back up to Ramsgate which is a bit of a slog. Sails are down and Mariadz is being readied for the pontoon as we call in to the port control for passage through to the Marina. Having got permission to proceed we speak to the harbourmaster and agree that we are at the end on the outside of the long pontoon, they are expecting a few other boats in so we need to be right at the end. Maria brings Mariadz in and performs a manoeuvre like a handbrake turn when someone skids and parks against the opposite curb or like Captain Ron but she doesn’t leave the wheel or switch the engine off before we’ve stopped. The super fast 180 degree turn is finished and Mariadz ferry glides sideways to the pontoon with a little bow thruster to keep her straight in the strong winds. A friendly Polish crew offer to take our lines and we are nicely settled right at the end of the pontoon. It’s a glorious day but with a strong cold wind so we use parts of the cockpit tent as a windbreak and settle down to finish our work. The Dunkirk Little Ships are starting to come in including MTB102, the last remaining operational motor torpedo boat from the war.
That night we have booked ourselves into the lovely small Thai Orchid restaurant in the arcade on the hill overlooking the Marina. To get there you work up an appetite by climbing several flights of steps. We have another lovely meal and return to the boat since we are both quite tired.
The next day we have a leisurely start to the day before heading off to explore town and have an authentic Italian meal for lunch. On our way down the pontoon, we see a Swiss boat that has a small float attached to a line attached to their anchor. Isn’t it always the case that the brilliant ideas are the simplest. Using this float means that you and everyone else knows where your anchor is so hopefully no-one lays their anchor across yours. It also means that if there is a problem with the chain (ours is a little rusty but fine), then you know where your anchor is and can retrieve it. We love the idea. We pop into the alladin’s cave of a chandlery full of really useful new and second hand items rather than a selection of nautical mugs or clothing. I ask about a boat hook. They have a second hand one that is a little sized by salt at the end but the stainless steel tubes move (our old one didn’t) and you can extend it. He also has another one which is less than perfect, but perfectly serviceable. We decide to go for both with our new float and twenty metres of line (20 metres- where are you thinking of anchoring!). We leave it at the shop and will collect on our return. We head into town and see a butcher with lots of offers. Despite the fact that Mariadz has limited refrigeration and freezer capacity we decide to stock up. Since we are heading to the Italian for lunch I suggest that I take all our shopping back to the boat first and sit Maria in a nice pub near the sea front with wooden panels and people for her to talk to. It takes me ages to get back having carried 10-15 kg of meat, two boat hooks, a float and twenty metres of line. A thank you to the baby sitters, quick drink and then off to the italian for a later lunch than we had planned. This wouldn’t be a problem but we have booked to go to the French Restaurant La Magnolia adjacent to the Thai that everyone raves about for dinner. During our gorgeous lunch we recheck the weather. The Northerlies are here to stay and although quite strong at the moment are strengthening to 35-40 knots on Monday. Having rechecked the forecast elsewhere we decide that we will go home a day earlier when it is not quite as bad. We eat too much at lunchtime and decide we have to cancel the French dinner (we have still not eaten there yet). We will also leave early on Sunday recognising that it will take a long time to get home and mostly in the face of a strong wind under engine.
On our return to the boat I set about the chores of freeing up the second hand boat hooks using boiling water, lots of cold fresh water and some silicon. It doesn’t take long for me to return the boat hook to new condition but it is not going in the anchor locker with salt water to seize it up!
The return journey on Sunday is the same routing but takes 50% more time against wind and tide for most of it. We get back to our home berth and decide that Mariadz has been good to us and deserves a thorough clean down.

Over the last few weeks we had a crisis of confidence with the engine due to the overheat in our first shakedown.  As you will have seen from other blog posts regarding the engine and engine room, we had gone through a process of regaining confidence and this weekend was to be our shakedown, sea trial and last of the configuration of the new equipment including the pilot which we are really missing, one doesn’t hand steer if one can avoid it.

We decided to leave on Friday afternoon which was a little delayed by meeting new friends on one of our friendly neighbours boats.  We eventually left the lock and motored down the beautiful River Orwell to our overnight destination of the mooring buoys opposite Suffolk Yacht Harbour.  As we went Maria took some photos of the river…

The pick up for the mooring buoy is uneventful and we settle to our overnight resting place.

The previous night we had arrived at the tackle shop shortly after it closed but they reopened to serve us.  Having recently lost some of the fishing gear through broken lines, Maria was keen to replace it and buy some bait.  The advice from the shop was fantastic, apparently it is no surprise we are not catching anything, we are using the wrong stuff…. So we buy some fancy anchoring weight with twin hooks that I am sure will change our luck!

Back to our evening outside Suffolk Yacht Harbour and Maria baits the hooks with ragworms and then goes downstairs to prepare dinner. By the time she returns, she wants to check her fishing tackle.  This is a regular occurrence when Maria is fishing normally followed by “something has eaten my bait” or bringing up a crab that is trying its best to eat the bait before it falls off the hook with Maria swearing at it.  She reels in to find two whiting trying to wriggle off the hook.   Please note that I think Maria has very cleverly angled the rod towards the camera to give the perspective that the two fish she caught were huge, I don’t recall them being this big!  I then. He led my rod and found another fish, this one had the hook in its lip and it as easy to free it and return it to the after to live another day.  As night fell we discussed anchor lights, we were on a mooring buoy in a known area along a straight part of the river.  The River Orwell has some documented examples of commercial traffic dragging yachts off their moorings accidentally on some of the bends in the river and some people suggest that an anchor light is appropriate. Then, one of the ocean scout vessels that come from Ipswich circled us closer and closer, we decided to help them know where we were by putting on the spreader lights! That left them in no doubt… These vessels have a bit of a reputation unfortunately and although we have never seen a problem, we decided to stay safe. They picked up a mooring buoy a few down from us and left their anchor light on!  We decided that we definitely didn’t need to do so since anyone would see them and know we were there. The next morning was glorious and still. We got up early and enjoyed a hangover-cure breakfast before setting off back up river to collect Olly from Seapower to get the last few things working. We collected him off the fuel pontoon st Wolverstone and spent a happy hour driving around in circles like a family in sainsburys car park on a Saturday morning looking for a space.  This helped us to configure the autopilot, check the forward facing sonar and also for further explanation of

the fish finder “frogger” screen. She does get excited when the torpedos go across. We also discussed how happy maria was with her lights and agreed some other minor works to go with the solar power we are intending to have installed. We also remembered that the log wasn’t working, a not uncommon experience in the Marina until you free it up manually or by manoeuvring. At this stage Olly mentioned that he generally removed this before lifting to avoid any damage, and it won’t read much speed in the bilge! Olly and I addressed this, more precisely I started it and Olly finished it when I had it the wrong way round in the dark!

We then dropped Olly back and decided to go back out.  One of the targets of the day was to check all of the sails and lubricate anything that needed it.  This was why we were keen to do this weekend on our own so that we could get these chores out of the way without any guests.  We sailed through

Felixstowe and out to the North Sea seeing some friends on our way on Tortola and on their way to the Deben. We came out into the North Sea and turned to the North to get some sail up in 8-10 knots of Easterly wind. Getting the sail up was a little problematic and we needed to lubricate, using silicon spray, the track for the main and the furlex drums for the stay sail and the Yankee.  Eventually we have full sail up although Mariadz needs a little more wind than this to really get going.  We decide after an hour to return to the rivers because we will anchor overnight at the anchorage in the River Stour opposite Harwich Parkeston Key. Maria’s step-mum lives in Harwich and so we decided we would drop the rib and surprise her.

We start to prepare the rib for lowering and go to lower the swim platform as our means of access. Nothing, the swim platform doesn’t move and we find that the small hydraulic fluid leak that had not been fixed (absolutely no reflection on anyone currently working on the boat), had now lost enough fluid to stop it working, grrrrh. However, we will think our way out of the problem. Mariadz being a larger Moody has quite a late freeboard, probably four feet (I haven’t measured it!), so clearly getting into a lowered rib is going to be tricky.  In theory we could lower the rib, detach it, walk it around the side and board using our fender step. Still a large step but possible. But….how would we get the boat back on the davits to return home. At this stage I decided that I could be lowered, and walking down the stern like Batman, could then get into the rib, Connie, bring her round and we are ready to go. That sounds like a plan, I have even knotted a rope to help with my descent! We attach the topping lift to my life jacket and start to lower me into the boat, success! I am now in the rib, but I didn’t bring the keys with me, muppet! It’s ok, Maria will find them and pass them to me…..

Who leaves the keys to a rib in their motorhome??? Why would you want rib keys in a motorhome anyway. I don’t either but I now know that is where they are. Maria finds the spare key and also the kill cord that has come from the smaller Tamaha engine that we have. What we didn’t know is that the part of the kill chord that keeps the kill switch in the out position is a different size and will not work with our Suzuki set up. So how can we rig something to work for the kill switch? Maria comes up with a hair band and wonders whether that, bound tightly would do the job – no harm in trying and the engine starts, more importantly it keeps running, were in business! We had already checked the fuel and far from being full, there is more than enough for our little jaunt and a spare can available too.

To be fair, Maria by this stage had made no secret of her apprehensiveness about boarding the rib from the midship gate.  People who know Maria will know that she will not have hidden these concerns from me and we both know whos fault it will be if anything untoward should happen. It is quite a large step. She also has a handy line to help her and gets in with no problems so I live to see another day.  We are ready to go.

At this time of the evening the wind had picked up a little and was in our faces as we head off to Harwich.  The tide is also coming in so we are against both wind and tide. This doesn’t lead to the most comfortable couple of miles in the rib. This is not helped by a stutter and cut out after 100m! There was enough fuel I am sure…..Maria asks if the hairband has slipped and is absolutely right. Removal and reattaching and we are ready to go.  I am trying to make the journey as comfortable as possible but it is difficult in the conditions until we get quite close to Harwich halfpenny pier. We order a taxi and go to surprise Maria’s step-mum.

It must have been a surprise to see two windswept and spray covered sailors clinging to their lifejackets and waterproof bag standing at her door, but I’m sure Jean was pleased to see us and we had a nice time for a couple of hours with Jean, Maria’s sister Natalie and her dog Ginny.  It is getting late and we have yet to get some food before braving the return journey which we would prefer not to do in the dark, although we are armed with a torch to help us find our way.

For food, we decided to try the Alma, where we have had a drink before but never eaten.  The food was amazing, their fish, steaks and lobster are fantastic!vwe leave full and happy as the light starts to go.

Fortunately, we haven’t been out so long for the tide to have changed so the journey back is very comfortable especially as the wind had died down a little too. In the dark we are even able to reverse the procedure to get the rib back up on the davits and me returned to the deck using the topping lift. What was shocking on a beautiful warm night, with little wind was that there was no-one near us, we expected this area to be full for the first good weekend of the year and it was wonderful to have the spot to ourselves.  Maria was so happy she felt the need to sing accompanied by me, I guess it was fortunate we didn’t have any neighbours.

On Sunday morning, we woke reasonably early to find the hoped for wind hadn’t materialised. Our hopes of having a great sail were dashed. A change of plan then! We will take our time and get home early afternoon.  We can then spend the afternoon cleaning the outside of the boat and the rib, boy do they need it. The roast can be cooking while we do all this.

A very sedentary trip back is only broken by having to evade a yacht who tacked and then didn’t point towards the wind at all.  I had adjusted our course so that when they tacked they would pass on our starboard side for some reason, they decided to cross right in front of us and we had to take avoiding action.  They had the look of people who were quite prepared to hit us because they were the stand on vessel. The river isn’t very wide at this point, near the Orwell bridge, and it was annoying to have this happen. I will have to remember to not let us be put in that position again. We dealt with the evasive action quickly but it was an unnecessary stress on a gorgeous day. Still he was probably the only vessel under sail in the whole day that we didn’t photograph so his loss!

We arrived at the lock when they had the level so we could motor straight through and it was nice to see our favourite lock-keeper Clive, who has always been so friendly.

It is such a shame that he was banned from playing music, some of his choices for different boats were hilarious and it’s a shame when people like this who make things fun have to stop.  He has certainly made it a pleasure when we go through the lock.

Once through the lock, we decided to find a nice berth where we could moor stern to so that we could drop the rib, clean it, clean my footprints off the stern (sorry, Mariadz) and do all of this without inconveniencing too many people by blocking a pontoon. Maria has history with cleaning the rib, she once very elegantly fell in when trying to fix the cover on the old Avon rib. That was in August when it was warm, not a feat to be repeated in May. We get everything clean, especially me – note to self, don’t trust Maria with a hose pipe, you WILL get very wet. We finally returned to our home berth to finish off the clean.  At the end of it Mariadz looked great and we felt we had done something for her after she does so much for us.

Then a gorgeous Sunday roast in the cockpit for two exhausted sailors.

Somewhat unusually for the UK, we had a hot and sunny weekend and then it rained for the next few days. However, much more expected was, despite using a little sun lotion, both Maria and I had sun burn after Sunday!