Trying to figure out a cunning plan ...

Inshore Waters Forecast to 12 miles offshore
for the period 0600 UTC Thursday 7 September to 0600 UTC Friday 8 September 2017

General situation
A new area of low pressure will track northeastwards between Iceland and Scotland, bringing with it strong winds, rain and showers to all areas over the next 48 hours.

Gibraltar Point to North Foreland - Strong winds are forecast

24 hour forecast: Westerly 3 or 4, backing southwesterly 4 or 5, increasing 6 at times later. Smooth or slight, becoming moderate later. Rain or showers later. Good, occasionally poor later.

Outlook for the following 24 hours: Southwesterly, veering westerly later, 4 or 5, occasionally 6 at first, then becoming variable 3 for a time in north. Moderate, becoming slight. Rain or showers. Moderate or good, occasionally poor.

On the basis of the inshore waters forecast, today and tomorrow, whilst brisk, are in definite "go" territory with the caveat that we probably want to be somewhere well sheltered overnight tonight.

Unusually, MeteoConsult's forecast is slightly worse than the Met Office forecast. The GFS forecast is better! Meteoconsult are predicting SW F6 gusting F7 overnight until around 09:00 to 10:00 tomorrow morning. The GFS is predicting Westerly F4 through the same period

Looking ahead, Meteoconsult (my favoured forecasting service) is still predicting a fresh gale on Sunday evening and a moderate gale on Monday but the GFS disagrees forecasting more of the same F4 / F5 Sou'westerly or Westerly conditions we've been getting all week

We still have 6 days of this cruise to go and I'm left with a bit of a dilemma. If Sunday / Monday is as Meteoconsult forecast, we realistically need to head back to the Crouch by Saturday evening, curtailing this trip. If the GFS is right, we don't need to head back until Monday / Tuesday.

Either way, our only option for today is to get out of the Deben this afternoon (we can't get out of Tidemill Yacht Harbour until about an hour and a half before high water and we need to get over the Deben Bar as soon after high water as we can manage) and position ourselves somewhere sheltered for the night.

I would have opted to anchor in Hamford Water tonight but I'm not sure that would be the smartest move. F6 plus from the Sou'west is likely to make for an uncomfortable night. Ha'penny Pier is likely to be a bit bouncy too. So it looks like it's going to have to be one of the Orwell marinas (to my slight irritation as I wanted to avoid marinas as much as possible on this cruise and it ain't working out!). After due consideration we're going to head for Suffolk Yacht Harbour at Levington on the basis that it's nicely sheltered and it's somewhere Jane hasn't been before

Then we'll think about options for Friday onwards this evening

So the passage plan for today is ..

HW Deben Bar 12:11UT

Dep Woodbridge approx 11:30UT towards SYH Levington eta 16:00UT
Note: Make best speed eta Deben Bar (eta app. 1hr after HW)