Furthest East

The regular reader will know that we (Vagabond and I, that is) have arrived at Wells next the Sea, on the north coast of East Anglia, the bulge on the eastern part of the southern bit of Britain., and are waiting for the permission of the gods (“a weather window”) before proceeding to the north. This seems to be a few days away, so I have abandoned Vagabond to her berth alongside  a pontoon and fled home for a brief bit of W&R*

This first part of this trip has been characterised by early morning starts and 12 hr long trips. We left Harwich on Tuesday morning (06:30 for those that want the detail), out of the lock and into the mouth of the rivers Orwell and Stour . The morning was fine and there was a light wind from the North East e.g. on the nose**. To help matters the tide was against us too, running south at a knot or two. Freddie came to life. We had to get a move on and cross the shipping lane. Behind us I could see there was an enormous container vessel turning round, ready to follow us out to sea. Rather than be a good boy and follow the recommended yacht track for about 3 miles before crossing the shipping channel, I looked both ways, saw that nothing was coming and Freddie punched us across the channel. The container ship went past about 20 minutes later as Freddie kept pushing us north east. There was quite a chop in the water but I was in a hurry, so we crashed through the waves, with spray flooding the foredeck. ‘This will test the repairs to the leaks’ I thought, as we pushed forward.

Once we were a couple of miles or so clear of the entrance, the sea became flatter and the wind started to veer*** towards the East.  The sails were hoisted (by the way Vagabond now flaunts a sail number) and we motor sailed on. Only the tide was against us. After a couple of hours, that eased and we were able to dispense with Freddies’ services.

Vagabond now carries a sail number

We passed the entrance to the River Ore (a possible refuge had the weather been awful) and pushed on. As we came abreast of Orfordness, the tide was in our favour and the wind had freshened a bit. We were doing a tide assisted 6 and half knots. The ex neighbour and his wife (we’d moved, not them) were at Aldeburgh, so I sent them a text ‘Waving not drowning’ and received a reply saying they were waving too! The phone rang. It was the ex-neighbour complaining that he couldn’t see us. The conection was lost before I could think of a suitable reply. Well, I could just see the shore through the murk that had built up in the last hour or so and Vagabond is a small boat .....

We hove to for a brief respite and some lunch. We carried on. As the afternoon wore on, the light became very gloomy (it would have stopped play at Lords) and I met little traffic.



Passing traffic





Overtaking traffic





Southwold drifts past

My GPS bleeped: an AIS**** warning me of a “target vessel” that was likely to impact me in five minutes time. Despite a hard look in all directions, I couldn’t see it.  Just then the VHF  radio squawked an instruction to change channel to listen to the maritime safety information broadcast***** .  As I bent under the spray hood to change VHF channel, I had the brief vision of a large rib (or it might have been a cat) rushing past about 20 yards away. His wake showed a distinct ‘S’ shape showing that he had only just seen me.

The wind dropped: on came Freddie as we ran past the invisible sand banks that were between us and the Lowestoft  entrance. The AIS warned me of more high speed craft astern, so I kept a careful watch astern. They both gave us a wide berth.  The IPAD charter plotter bleeped. 'What is it now?' thought, 'I'm busy'. Frantically "pressing" buttons on the screen, I realised I'd left the mobile data connection operational and the IPAD had picked up several emails. 'They can wait', I thought as I called Lowestoft port control: permission was granted for Vagabond to enter harbour.

We eased through the harbour entrance and into the basin where the Royal Norfolk and Suffolk YC have a marina. It was full, so we rafted up against a Dutch steel yacht for the night and I set about clearing up. I had just finished when there was a heavy thunderstorm.   It appears that the deck leaks are almost fixed.....

Now to respond to those emails. One was from the Skipper (so someone is reading this stuff), pointing out that I had misnamed a channel in the narrative of the voyage to Harwich. So here's the correction, for Swillet read Wallet.

Terms, abbreviations and translations

* Washing and Recovery

** From straight ahead

*** change direction “clockwise” on the compass rose

**** Automatic Identification system – all big ships now transmit information on their position, course, speed, ship type and destination. As well as helping with collision avoidance it has the unintended consequence of helping a pirate identify a likely target! See for yourself at http://www.shipais.com/

***** Usually the weather forecast