The updates seem to have settled on about one blog for every two days’ sailing, which is hopefully enough if you’re keeping up at home.
Cheerio Dover
Back on Thursday, we’d been storm (and lurgy) bound in Dover for a couple of days, sitting tight and fixing things while a couple of days of strong north easterly winds blew through. The wait was a bit frustrating but Calum got a big chunk of remote work done, I appreciated the chance to rest and got a fair few things working nicely on the boat – always satisfying.
We set off on Friday with a fair wind for a straightforward sail to Ramsgate. We checked in with Dover Port Control to make sure we were clear to leave the harbour, and they said ‘yes, if you make your way to the eastern exit with all possible speed’. So we made our break for it and about 5 minutes after we cleared the exit a couple of DFDS ferries swept out of the exit. You can see why they need all vessels to check in before moving!
The sail to Ramsgate was nice and restorative – sunshine, following winds, helpful tides and not too long a distance. It was a very pleasant return to sailing. The only excitement was a strong tidal current and some ‘back to front’ buoyage on the way in. But this was all clearly noted in the pilot book, so we were well prepared.
Ramsgate is a really interesting place, with the town centre very close to the harbour and lots of interesting old streets. This might have been a more interesting place to stay than Dover. We refreshed ourselves with ice cream and a nice Greek meal.
A big day – crossing the Thames
The rest was important because we had a big day on Saturday – crossing the Thames estuary from Ramsgate to Harwich. This was a pretty long day with some complicated pilotage. So complex, in fact, that it has its very own pilot book, Crossing the Thames Estuary. This guidance was very welcome, as it took a lot of the head-scratching out of calculating a lot of different tidal flows and helping us choose our ideal departure time to catch the best tides.
We had to wait until 1130am to leave, which gave us a few hours of pent-up excitement, which Calum managed by double-checking his gear and popping out for a bit of last-minute food shopping, while I had a doze and listened to Radio 3.
Before long we were out in the sunshine, close-reaching north for our first waypoints. The wind was a bit more on the nose than forecast, but a good strength so we sailed along nicely. Part of our route took us through the London Array, a huge offshore wind farm. This was a really cool bit of sailing!
Much of our attention was watching the traffic in the shipping channels, by eye and by AIS. Luckily visibility was excellent, so we were able to see the big ships coming from far away and make sure we were in safe water or clear to cross.
One of the surprising things about the Thames estuary was just how shallow the water got this far out – apart from some big dredged channels, it is full of sandbanks, and the tidal flows sweep you north east and south west at various points. I would not want to sail it on a foggy day!
As we passed through the wind farm, the wind started dropping so we motor sailed to keep to our passage time. This was important to make sure that we hit the tides right and made Harwich before dark.
We motored up the Essex coast and found safe shallow water west of the main channel. We had to time our approach carefully as a large ferry was on its way in. Again, keeping to safe water just outside the channel saw us right.
We were glad to see Shotley marina at the end of a long but straightforward day. We celebrated our passage with a toast and some boil-in-the-bag curry.
It feels great to be finally heading up the East Coast – a lot of big sailing days behind us. But the next few days will involve some more head-scratching over passage planning, with high water in the middle of the day and ports few and far between. We’re likely to be doing a bit of anchoring. I suspect Calum will clear out a supermarket of provisions so apologies if you are looking for lettuce or halloumi in the north Suffolk area in the next few days.
things that might have been otherwise 