The girls flew out from Guernsey on the Monday morning leaving Rich and I to get in some shopping and make ready to leave on Tuesday.
Leave we duly did making a decent passage to Longy Bay on the South side of Alderney where we'd hoped to anchor. To my annoyance, somebody has laid two "private" moorings that occupy the whole of the decent anchorage area.
Being reluctant to pick up a mooring clearly marked as private, and equally reluctant to anchor in an area with unknown ground tackle just waiting to foul the anchor, we bailed out and headed around to the East of Alderney towards Braye.
Technically, we thus sailed, or should I say motored, through the Alderney Race. In fact, I gingerly picked my way through the inshore rocks and shoals to avoid a line of offshore breakers and a long detour. In an area marked on the chart as "incompletely surveyed" this was a slightly edgy experience but I had taken into account that any shoals or isolated rocks would show up as a disturbance on the surface (the marked shoals and rocks could clearly be seen this way).
Arriving in Braye, we picked up one of the last four visitor mooring buoys. Within quarter of an hour the other three were occupied by yachts that had come up through The Swinge. We'd snuck in ahead, just, which was a bit of a result! We might have been able to pick up a buoy on the other side of the harbour, although the available depth over there might have been an issue otherwise it would have had to be down with the hook and lie to our own gear.
Conditions in Braye, which can be nasty, were very benign so we decided to stay put for a day. Then we discovered it was three nights for the price of two so we decided to make it two days!
Alderney is very different to the other islands in the Balliwick of Guernsey. Different archtecture, different atmoshphere, different scenery. I liked it!
Come Friday we made shift to get back across the Channel. We'd decided against heading along the North French coast due to the long legs between harbours and some doubts about the weather for the coming week. Off to the Solent was our decision.
We had a contretemp with a freighter heading East who was clearly not keeping a good watch. As the stand on vessel, it was my legal obligation to stand on until it was obvious the other vessel was not making an effort to avoid a collision. When we started to get too close for comfort I called the vessel up on the VHF to clarify his intentions and, somewhat to my surprise, got a reply.
The reply was less than reassuring. The voice on the other end sounded confused and unaware of any of the traffic around him. He stated his intention to maintain his course and speed and when I pointed out that this would result in a collision with the yacht off his starboard bow (us) he replied that he couldn't see us! I responded that I was rather surprised by this as we were barely 1.5 miles apart, we were transmitting on AIS, our radar was active (meaning we would definitely show up on his radar) and the visibility was perfect.
After a further confused sounding response, where he proposed that we BOTH alter course to starboard (which would have resulted in his running us down from astern instead of from the side. Not exactly an improvement) I got authoratitive about matters and made it VERY clear that he should do NOTHING, maintaining his course and speed, and that I would circle around and pass astern of him.
Thankfully he got that message and the incident passed without further ado but it was a worrying indication of the reported suspicions that smaller cargo vessels are increasingly so poorly manned as to be unable to keep a proper lookout.
It was blindingly obvious that the person who replied to my VHF call had zero situational awareness and that he was struggling to get a grip. One can only speculate whether he'd been asleep, texting on his phone having just got a signal for the first time in weeks, or doing something else. What he clearly had not been doing was looking out of the window, monitoring his radar or his AIS
Anyway, rant over and on to Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight we proceeded. The fun though wasn't over yet!
As we approached the Needles, Solent Coastguard put out a request for any vessel to assist a small speedboat broken down just off the Needles. A yacht somewhat closer than us responded and headed their way, nobody else chimed in at all (despite several more suitable vessels being in the vicinity). So I called up the Coasties and offered our assistance if required albeit we were around 40 minutes away from the incident. A few minutes later we were called back, thanked and released to continue our voyage.
We arrived in Yarmouth and rafted up to a rather pretty yacht with very friendly owners. The next morning we moved to a finger berth. Although I could have had free nights in Lymington Yacht Haven, I fancied a visit to Yarmouth as I'd never been before by boat. Very nice it is too.
We probably should have moved on on Sunday but the Solent was wall to wall boats. Big boats, little boats, sailing boats, motor boats, jetskis, speedboats, dinghys. it was just boats everywhere. So we went to the pub again!
Come Monday morning we set off hoping to reach Eastbourne. However, Pagan was proving to be rather sluggish and we simply weren't making good speed through the water. At the start of the passage, the sea was like a mill pond but by late afternoon off Brighton it was building an increasingly annoying steep chop, the wind had got up and we were being chased by a cold front coming in rapidly from the West.
We gave up and bailed out into Brighton. Our first stop was the refuelling dock as it seemed sensible to take the chance to top up the tanks then we moved onto a finger berth. I offered to take a berth that would have our keel in the mud at low water to avoid the chaos that was the visitor berths. The marina staff were doing their best but the number of boats trying to get in was overwhelming the capacity of the availabe moorings and their ability to cope.
Brighton marina desperately needs dredging. It's been allowed to get into a parlous state and although some aspects (such as the toilet and shower facilities) are better than they used to be I do object to paying the same to visit Brighton as I pay to visit Soveriegn Harbour or Chichester where the facilities are fantastic and you can always get a good berth.
Grumble aside, we then had to stay in Brighton for a second day as the cold front and the following low pressure system blew through. It wasn't an absolute "no go" day but an examination of our hull below the waterline at low water had revealed a considerable amount of fouling. This accounted for our lack of get up and go and I felt it worth trying to shift some of it with the deck brush.
I also had a suspicion about the cooling water intake filter. Whilst we were by no means overheating and there was a reasonable amount of water being ejected from the wet exhaust, my instincts were telling me that it wasn't as much water as usual.
So we took the chance whilst in Brighton to have the basket filter out of the intake box and sure enough it was partially choked with weed. We also gave the air filter a clean while we were in the engine hole, a job I'd meant to do before we left several weeks ago that didn't get done. It wasn't desperate but it could do no harm. And some work with the deck brush shifted some of the weed.
Wednesday saw us make the relatively short hop from Brighton to Sovereign Harbour. We left with some hopes of perhaps making Dover but we were still lacking in the boat speed department. It was frustrating but there was no help for it. We were resigned to making Dover on Thursday and then having to split the final leg with a stop at Ramsgate on Friday.
To cut a long story short, we did indeed make Dover on Thursday and in fairly good time too. Pagan had suddenly found at least some of her missing get up and go. I have a feeling we had something, perhaps weed, foulding the prop as the prop wash on the run from Brighton to Sovereign Harbour had struck me as being unusually violent and on this run it was back to something like normal.
That, and other considerations, put us in the mood to stop idling about and get the hammer down on Friday. There was a reasonable chance of getting Pagan back onto her mud berth Friday evening and that would be the last chance for over a week. So get the hammer down we did and happily we made the passage from Dover to Fambridge almost exactly as planned.
Less happily, the tide failed to make by well over a foot and Pagan will have to lurk on the river pontoon for a week until Jane and I can go down next weekend and move her
No comments:
Post a Comment