When last I wrote to you, dear reader, we were planning on heading up to Southwold but you will no doubt have noticed from yesterday's passage plan that we end up in Ipswich instead!
During our run ashore on Thursday evening for beer and a rather good, if pricey, steak at The Alma, Jane had mentioned that she'd rather like to have a proper look around Harwich rather than move on. So it was agreed that if the weather served for a good sail to Southwold we'd go but if it looked like we'd end up motoring we'd stay put
We stayed put!
After breaking our fast in a leisurely fashion, we set off on a wander around Harwich to play Brown Sign Bingo on foot.
For the benefit of our overseas reader, UK road signs have a coloured background to denote the type of information the sign conveys. Signs directing you to tourist attractions, museums, etc have a brown background.
Brown Sign Bingo is played by simply following the brown signs and seeing where you end up!
Our first stop was aboard the preserved lightship right next to Ha'penny Pier. That's well worth the modest charge and I had an interesting chat with one of the volunteers aboard who had actually served on the manned lightships.
Then we visited the RNLI lifeboat station next door. There's construction work ongoing which meant parts of the station were not accessible but we made some purchases in the shop. Jane was once again disappointed not to be able to get a good look at the lifeboat (one of these days I'll drag her along to an open day somewhere where you can actually get aboard an All Weather Lifeboat. I'd rather like to get a proper look at one myself!)
We struck out on the next two brown signs. The lifeboat museum was shut and the maritime museum was closed for refurbishment.
Our final stop therfore was the Harwich Redoubt. This Napoleonic era fort is well worth a visit, or second visit in my case, and Jane, who is not much of a museum person usually, quite seriously suggested to one of the volunteers that they should put the entry fee up from the very modest £3 a head!
We dined on board before heading back to the Alma as we'd noted that they had live music on. Very good it was too with a competent three piece band called "The Remoras" playing an eclectic mix of pop covers spanning the decades.
We poured ourselves into our berth at a fairly late hour with the alarm set for a sensible start the following morning.
Having given up on Southwold for this trip, we'd decided to pay a first visit to Ipswich dock. I wanted to get off the berth before the tide turned and planned to leave an hour or so before high water which would also see us in Ipswich before the ebb really kicked in
Matters were complicated by our having acquired a Dutchman overnight! A single hander in (I think) a Folkboat had picked the wrong option out of three yachts to raft up to. I've no idea what time he arrived cos I didn't hear a thing (Jane thinks she felt a bump but didn't look at the time) and he wasn't overly happy to be awoken and asked, by means of sign language, to shift
Jane was still abed as I had no intention of mucking about with sails. The wind, such as it was, was Westerly and a couple of hours motoring would see us in Ipswich with most of the day to explore.
That we duly did and there's not much to say about it. If you have a real need of the usual range of high street shops they're ask there and some of the old medieval streets are interesting enough but I doubt we'll bother again. I'd sooner stop at Fox's
There being nothing to keep us in Ipswich, the debate was where to go yesterday (Sunday). With winds up to F7 forecast for Monday we decided to chicken out and get back to the Crouch a day early.
After some head scratching, I decided that a very civilised departure around 08:30 would serve. This would coincide with free flow through the lock into the docks, thus saving time and faffing about, and would give us a fair tide down the Orwell. It would though mean a foul tide in the Wallet but that was unavoidable
We had the sails up and the engine off as soon as we were clear of the dock and it was very pleasant sailing down river. The wind was rather fitful but it served.
From the forecast and the actuals, I was betting on getting a good deal more wind once we cleared the river and I wasn't disappointed. However, the direction wasn't what I'd hoped for from the forecast the previous evening (although it was, in average, consistent with the latest forecast)
We struggled across Pennyhole Bay and crept round The Naze but the wind was shifty and up and down like a yoyo. One minute we'd have 8 knots of wind from the South East, then it would be 18 knots from the South West then moments later a 12 knot Southerly and so on. I'd get Pagan set up and sailing well on one tack then be suddenly headed as the wind shifted and find myself sailing on the wrong direction altogether so I'd tack again, trim the sails and get settled on the other tack only for it to happen again!
By the time we were creeping past Walton Pier I'd had enough and I called it a day. Although I'm determined to try and cut down on the amount of motoring we do, we were on a hiding to nothing and it was on with the engine all the way to Burnham
We arrived shortly before five and made, frankly, a bit of a hash of getting into the allocated berth. We'd already agreed that we need more fenders and more suitable mooring lines (like most of the string that came with Pagan, the mooring lines are far too long for easy handling) and we're agreed that the money will have to be spent sooner rather than later
We also had some comms issues with the electronics with stuff suddenly not talking to other stuff that it had previously been talking to. I have a feeling I know where the problem lies and I'll investigate further when time permits
One other issue that came to light resulted from not being on shore power for several days. There's no shore power at Harwich and a visiting crowd of Dutch boats had snaffled all the available sockets at Ipswich Haven so we'd been off grid since Thursday morning with just a couple of hours engine running. That led to a low battery alert on the new autohelm. We don't have any solar panels. We need solar panels!
I also need to get fitter. Yesterday's efforts tired me out to the extent that I was in bed and sound asleep before Jane and that's very unusual.
Today, we're in no hurry and we'll be raiding the chandlery here at Burnham after breakfast for some of the items we've found we're short of. Then we'll make our way back upriver later and that will be this mini-cruise over.
During our run ashore on Thursday evening for beer and a rather good, if pricey, steak at The Alma, Jane had mentioned that she'd rather like to have a proper look around Harwich rather than move on. So it was agreed that if the weather served for a good sail to Southwold we'd go but if it looked like we'd end up motoring we'd stay put
We stayed put!
After breaking our fast in a leisurely fashion, we set off on a wander around Harwich to play Brown Sign Bingo on foot.
For the benefit of our overseas reader, UK road signs have a coloured background to denote the type of information the sign conveys. Signs directing you to tourist attractions, museums, etc have a brown background.
Brown Sign Bingo is played by simply following the brown signs and seeing where you end up!
Our first stop was aboard the preserved lightship right next to Ha'penny Pier. That's well worth the modest charge and I had an interesting chat with one of the volunteers aboard who had actually served on the manned lightships.
Then we visited the RNLI lifeboat station next door. There's construction work ongoing which meant parts of the station were not accessible but we made some purchases in the shop. Jane was once again disappointed not to be able to get a good look at the lifeboat (one of these days I'll drag her along to an open day somewhere where you can actually get aboard an All Weather Lifeboat. I'd rather like to get a proper look at one myself!)
We struck out on the next two brown signs. The lifeboat museum was shut and the maritime museum was closed for refurbishment.
Our final stop therfore was the Harwich Redoubt. This Napoleonic era fort is well worth a visit, or second visit in my case, and Jane, who is not much of a museum person usually, quite seriously suggested to one of the volunteers that they should put the entry fee up from the very modest £3 a head!
We dined on board before heading back to the Alma as we'd noted that they had live music on. Very good it was too with a competent three piece band called "The Remoras" playing an eclectic mix of pop covers spanning the decades.
We poured ourselves into our berth at a fairly late hour with the alarm set for a sensible start the following morning.
Having given up on Southwold for this trip, we'd decided to pay a first visit to Ipswich dock. I wanted to get off the berth before the tide turned and planned to leave an hour or so before high water which would also see us in Ipswich before the ebb really kicked in
Matters were complicated by our having acquired a Dutchman overnight! A single hander in (I think) a Folkboat had picked the wrong option out of three yachts to raft up to. I've no idea what time he arrived cos I didn't hear a thing (Jane thinks she felt a bump but didn't look at the time) and he wasn't overly happy to be awoken and asked, by means of sign language, to shift
Jane was still abed as I had no intention of mucking about with sails. The wind, such as it was, was Westerly and a couple of hours motoring would see us in Ipswich with most of the day to explore.
That we duly did and there's not much to say about it. If you have a real need of the usual range of high street shops they're ask there and some of the old medieval streets are interesting enough but I doubt we'll bother again. I'd sooner stop at Fox's
There being nothing to keep us in Ipswich, the debate was where to go yesterday (Sunday). With winds up to F7 forecast for Monday we decided to chicken out and get back to the Crouch a day early.
After some head scratching, I decided that a very civilised departure around 08:30 would serve. This would coincide with free flow through the lock into the docks, thus saving time and faffing about, and would give us a fair tide down the Orwell. It would though mean a foul tide in the Wallet but that was unavoidable
We had the sails up and the engine off as soon as we were clear of the dock and it was very pleasant sailing down river. The wind was rather fitful but it served.
From the forecast and the actuals, I was betting on getting a good deal more wind once we cleared the river and I wasn't disappointed. However, the direction wasn't what I'd hoped for from the forecast the previous evening (although it was, in average, consistent with the latest forecast)
We struggled across Pennyhole Bay and crept round The Naze but the wind was shifty and up and down like a yoyo. One minute we'd have 8 knots of wind from the South East, then it would be 18 knots from the South West then moments later a 12 knot Southerly and so on. I'd get Pagan set up and sailing well on one tack then be suddenly headed as the wind shifted and find myself sailing on the wrong direction altogether so I'd tack again, trim the sails and get settled on the other tack only for it to happen again!
By the time we were creeping past Walton Pier I'd had enough and I called it a day. Although I'm determined to try and cut down on the amount of motoring we do, we were on a hiding to nothing and it was on with the engine all the way to Burnham
We arrived shortly before five and made, frankly, a bit of a hash of getting into the allocated berth. We'd already agreed that we need more fenders and more suitable mooring lines (like most of the string that came with Pagan, the mooring lines are far too long for easy handling) and we're agreed that the money will have to be spent sooner rather than later
We also had some comms issues with the electronics with stuff suddenly not talking to other stuff that it had previously been talking to. I have a feeling I know where the problem lies and I'll investigate further when time permits
One other issue that came to light resulted from not being on shore power for several days. There's no shore power at Harwich and a visiting crowd of Dutch boats had snaffled all the available sockets at Ipswich Haven so we'd been off grid since Thursday morning with just a couple of hours engine running. That led to a low battery alert on the new autohelm. We don't have any solar panels. We need solar panels!
I also need to get fitter. Yesterday's efforts tired me out to the extent that I was in bed and sound asleep before Jane and that's very unusual.
Today, we're in no hurry and we'll be raiding the chandlery here at Burnham after breakfast for some of the items we've found we're short of. Then we'll make our way back upriver later and that will be this mini-cruise over.
All's well that ends well
ReplyDeleteSounds like you having a good time despite the ups and downs with the wind good luck ans safe sailing
ReplyDeleteAh, the need to get fitter. I'm a member of that club!
ReplyDelete