We'd made no firm plans and, unusually, didn't even have a passage plan (cos we had no idea where we'd end up!)
It was a lovely day, high water was late morning and so we didn't rush to get away. After nipping out for some fresh supplies we let go late morning and headed downriver
The forecast Northerly F3/4 turned out to be an Easterly F2 or less so with the tide helping us along we motored down past Burnham
We had considered anchoring in the Roach but as Jane said, it was too nice a day to waste so we headed on out. A bit more breeze with just enough angle on it enticed me into hoisting all plain sail and killing the engine
That nearly led to "disaster" as I tried to sneak over a shoal rather than put in a tack and, inevitably, ran us aground! It took every one of the forty two horses our venerable Merc could deliver to get us off but we got away with it :)
I decided to stop playing silly buggers and rolled away the genoa. We cracked on under motor, crossed the Spitway and headed into the Blackwater
The crew vote was to see if there was a bouy free or room to anchor in the Pyefleet so we headed that way. Along the way I dropped and stowed the main and mizzen as there was no point in having them up
Entering the Pyefleet we ran around again! Unlike the hard sand off Holliwell Point though this was soft mud so we just powered through it.
The Pyefleet, as we half expected, was full so we extricated ourselves and headed over to Brightlingsea. Now I'd swear I was in the middle of the channel (I will check the track later) when, to my utter disgust, we found ourselves on the putty for the third time! This was getting beyond a joke
Once again we were able to power through the soft mud into (relatively) deeper water although no matter where I put Pagan there was no more than a foot or two of water under the keel
(As I said, I will check but it seemed to me that we dragged the keel through a bit of a bar of soft mud in the approach to Brightlingsea Creek)
Once alongside the (rather expensive) river pontoon Jane set about heating up a meal whilst I did some engine checks. We'd caught a couple of whiffs of exhaust fumes which we thought had probably emanated from nearby fishing boats but I wanted to make sure. All seemed well anyway
We caught the water taxi ashore to meet up with our friends Jim and Lynn and forced ourselves to consume several alcoholic drinks (it's a hard life) and made the water taxi back to the pontoon with minutes to spare
A very pleasant day all in all but we'd both prefer to avoid any more running aground this trip!
It was a lovely day, high water was late morning and so we didn't rush to get away. After nipping out for some fresh supplies we let go late morning and headed downriver
The forecast Northerly F3/4 turned out to be an Easterly F2 or less so with the tide helping us along we motored down past Burnham
We had considered anchoring in the Roach but as Jane said, it was too nice a day to waste so we headed on out. A bit more breeze with just enough angle on it enticed me into hoisting all plain sail and killing the engine
That nearly led to "disaster" as I tried to sneak over a shoal rather than put in a tack and, inevitably, ran us aground! It took every one of the forty two horses our venerable Merc could deliver to get us off but we got away with it :)
I decided to stop playing silly buggers and rolled away the genoa. We cracked on under motor, crossed the Spitway and headed into the Blackwater
The crew vote was to see if there was a bouy free or room to anchor in the Pyefleet so we headed that way. Along the way I dropped and stowed the main and mizzen as there was no point in having them up
Entering the Pyefleet we ran around again! Unlike the hard sand off Holliwell Point though this was soft mud so we just powered through it.
The Pyefleet, as we half expected, was full so we extricated ourselves and headed over to Brightlingsea. Now I'd swear I was in the middle of the channel (I will check the track later) when, to my utter disgust, we found ourselves on the putty for the third time! This was getting beyond a joke
Once again we were able to power through the soft mud into (relatively) deeper water although no matter where I put Pagan there was no more than a foot or two of water under the keel
(As I said, I will check but it seemed to me that we dragged the keel through a bit of a bar of soft mud in the approach to Brightlingsea Creek)
Once alongside the (rather expensive) river pontoon Jane set about heating up a meal whilst I did some engine checks. We'd caught a couple of whiffs of exhaust fumes which we thought had probably emanated from nearby fishing boats but I wanted to make sure. All seemed well anyway
We caught the water taxi ashore to meet up with our friends Jim and Lynn and forced ourselves to consume several alcoholic drinks (it's a hard life) and made the water taxi back to the pontoon with minutes to spare
A very pleasant day all in all but we'd both prefer to avoid any more running aground this trip!
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