The Weather Improves at Last … Sea, Sailing and Grandsons

25^th June

We sailed into the Colne last night and ‘socked’ the cruising chute as we approached Mersey Stone Point.  It was just after LW as we nudged into the mud off Westmarsh Point, just upriver from the entrance to Brightlingsea Creek, and dropped anchor in 0 metres.  With the light south easterlies, the ship dropped back to be just afloat.  The wind backed easterly overnight.  Ideal.

It’s another glorious day.  Are we going to be complaining about heat waves shortly after all the rain and cold?  With climate change the days of planning even a five day cruise on a long term forecast are over.

I’m resting today.  The area around my pacemaker is giving me jyp.  22 tacks out of the Orwell, last time we were out and about, is not ideal if there is irritation around what used to be, very many many years ago, quite handsome pectoral muscles!  What’s left of the old pecs … must, after all, still winch!

When I returned home from the boat a week or so ago, I was astonished to see bruising around my pacemaker.  Sally told me to email a picture to the Arrythmia Nurses at Papworth.  I sent the email at 2330 and a reply came back at 0745 the following morning with an appointment for the following day.  An example of the workings of our shattered NHS!

I saw a specialist heart nurse who then asked a Cardiologist to examine me.  In short, the foreign object (my pace maker), has tethered itself to the skin, so I am always going to get bruising if I do anything!  I’m being seen again in a month, whilst Papworth decide what’s best to do.  I also had a blood test and saw the Physiologists (the pacemaker cleverly records how much it has had to work).  So the end result is no infection and the pace maker is barely having to work for me.  The tethering to the skin though, has to be treated.  The visit to Papworth was world class care!

I am told that a Total Heart Block never gets better.  I was seriously ill in Cornwall in November 2021.  The three wire pacemaker implanted then, ominously had instructions that the device ‘might’ prolong my life!  When it became infected and had to be removed a year later my heart was working quite well.  When the infection had cleared up the Cardiologists were questioning whether to implant a pacemaker at all.  Eventually they did … “as a precaution”.  The new pacemaker, is a much simpler two wire device.

It points to the Total Heart Block being caused by Covid and the Pfizer Booster given to me eleven days before the Heart Block.  A Professor of Cardiology in London had told my brothers that it was definitely the result of the Covid vaccine!

Sorry about the medical.  It is how I try to best juggle my sailing with how I feel.

We crossed the Orford Haven Bar yesterday at midday.  I’d managed to get my sums wrong.  We should have been an hour earlier at half tide.  We still had a couple of hours of the flood to take us south.  We sailed in very light southerly winds to SW Whiting SC before tacking on to port.

It was going to be a beautiful day.  I decided to sail down the Wallet, close inshore, to get a little less current, against a foul tide?  I have occasionally sailed against a foul tide, if it’s just been lovely out on the water.  The wind gradually backed and we slowly pointed up to round the Naze on one tack.  Thereafter the south easterly winds barely touched a F 3 and for the most part it was just a faint breath … a F 1-2.

Off Chevaux de Frise Point I furled the genoa and set the Cruising Chute.  We never stopped moving forwards.  The gradually sinking in the sands (so I’m told) Wind Turbines on the Gunfleet Sands were barely turning.

I was quite prepared to drop anchor and stow the sails if we started moving backwards (Maurice Griffiths would have approved).  Approaching Priory Spit with the wind now off the port quarter and starting to shadow the cruising chute, the main came down and we sailed under Cruising Chute only.  I had intended to anchor off St Lawrence Creek in the Blackwater but we would not arrive before sunset.  There are some unlit marks in the Blackwater that worried me.  Instead we sailed in to the Colne and we were settled, anchor light shining from the masthead, as the sun went down over Pyefleet Creek on a glorious evening.  You could have heard a pin drop overnight!

We were underway for eleven hours yesterday.  Over the ground we covered 38 NM and 53 NM through the water.  We registered two engine hours of which 1.3 was leaving the Ore and 0.7 was socking the Cruising Chute whilst entering the Colne.  I did not fancy anchoring under Cruising Chute!!

On Saturday Orford SC was visited by ten children and two staff members from the Cyril Jackson School in Tower Hamlets.  A more delightful visit could not be imagined as our team of Instructors and Helpers gave the group a sensational day.

28^th June

I once said on a US podcast that I hoped never to be surprised at sea.  I was told there are always surprises.  What I meant was that I’d reached a level of experience where I felt I would be pretty confident to make the right decisions, know what to do, and better still, anticipate, or nip a problem in the bud!  In other words … seeing danger early.  To be surprised means you have been caught out to the extent that you are not even able to improvise!  An essential to all sailors.

Herb Pason once wrote that

“They were so well prepared that maybe when the first emergency came along that required improvisation – a solution not in their book – it destroyed their confidence.  To be sure; preparation is the most important part of safe cruising, the best insurance you can get.  But after a certain point a person must be confident enough to ad lib.”

I have just started to read ‘Sailing Barge Venta’ by John Fairbrother and Jocelyn Lukins.  Me n Doc often talk about avoiding adventures at sea (an adventure is when something goes wrong) and how he has taught me that an uneventful passage means it has been a safe journey across the sea.  I am adamant that you don’t have to go looking for ‘adventure’ at sea.  If you sail enough, and for long enough, you will be tested sooner or later.  That is when tens of thousands of miles of sailing should help … a lot.

On page 8 of ‘Sailing Barge Venta’ John Fairbrother writes that

“Patience and caution would be the orders of the voyage having no taste for adventure, so called, at sea”.

That should be very much in every sailor’s thoughts before putting to sea.

We are still anchored in the Colne.  A depression is passing through to the north and we moved over to anchor off Mersey Stone Point the night before last with the wind going west and south westerly.  The weather has remained fine.

30^th June

We are AGAIN in a marina!

At 0630 yesterday morning there was just enough breeze at the start of the ebb to hoist the main, weigh anchor and sail most of the way out of the river to Colne Point before the faint north westerly wind died.  We drifted north up the Wallet with the tide, the ship barely having steerage.

‘Caveat’ and ‘Tequila’ had steamed out of Brightlingsea Creek and the Colne at 0800, rounded the Colne Bar SHM and motored north with the ebb.  We were close hauled passing Lion Point at 1000 when we set the genoa, close hauled, as a forecasted, light south easterly began earlier than expected.   Way to the north ‘Tequila’ and ‘Caveat’ were setting their cruising chutes.

An hour later, bearing away and passing Clacton Pier, we furled the genoa, set the cruising chute and took the main down.

Steadily the wind increased and by the time we were passing Walton Pier it was a SE F3. Lovely !

The afternoon before I’d inflated my tender and entered Brightlingsea Creek.  A visit to Tesco, a shower and supper with the crews of ‘Tequila’ and ‘Caveat’ on Caveat on the Brightlingsea pontoon was a lot of fun.  I returned to ‘Talisker 1’ at sunset.

Today we planned to meet again in the Walton Backwaters.

We socked the cruising chute in Penny Hole Bay and sailed under genoa into the Backwaters.  ‘Caveat’ was rafted to ‘Tequila’ at anchor and we were invited to raft alongside too.

All three boats made their way up to Titchmarsh Marina and the two crews of ‘Tequila’ and ‘Caveat’ kindly took our lines at 1610.  Engine off.

This morning I’ve worked hard on the ship taking advantage of the fresh running water to thoroughly wash the decks, clutches, furling gear etc and fill up the fresh water tanks.

It seems to me that Bradwell and Titchmarsh remain affordable marinas to visitors.  I telephoned Shotley to enquire the cost for a night for ‘Talisker 1’ and it came to £42.  That is well over 30% more than the other two!  The facilities in both Bradwell and Titchmarsh are very good.

We will thankfully be at anchor again tonight.

2215

We are at anchor, just inside Orwell PHM after a good sail from the Walton Backwaters.  At midnight the very light winds will back to the west.  We are tucked very close into the bank.

It took twenty two tacks to get in to the Orwell from Languard Point in NNW 3s gusting 5s (I have to sail).  It was blustery and overcast.  The threat of rain diminished as the day wore on.  The river is now a mirror calm.

We cast off from Titchmarsh at 1545, hoisted a full main in the Twizzle and set the stay sail an hour later as we entered Hamford Water.

Sailing close hauled in the Orwell we took the main down at 1825 in Lower Reach and anchored under stay sail ten minutes later.

I switched the radio on at the exact moment Harry Kane scored the winning goal tonight.  Little did I know that England were going out six minutes into injury time just a few minutes earlier.  Bellingham had scored the equalising goal in the nick of time.

What monsters we are as a nation to be so deriding and critical of those in the public eye.

1^st July

After a restful morning we hoisted a full main and weighed anchor, at LW Harwich, to sail home to Orford.

The breeze was a WNW F3 with a dull sky.  Just for a moment … I thought summer had finally arrived.  A category 4 Hurricane has hit the Caribbean.  With rising sea temperatures more than nine Hurricanes are predicted for this year.  Do we really need convincing that the weather is changing!

‘Tequila’ and ‘Caveat’ were leaving Shotley Marina and heading up the Orwell as we sailed passed Shotley Spit.

At Harwich Shelf we set the stay sail and after rounding Languard Point, the wind was mostly on the beam all the way to the Ore.  It was a lovely sailing day and ‘Talisker 1’ flew, at times, when the gusts took the breeze above 10 knots over the deck.  She is quite a passage maker and my admiration for her in my tenth year of ownership is undiminished.  The stay sail makes light work for her aging crew.  And my goodness it’s a powerful sail.

Making very good time we furled the stay sail to put the brakes on as we passed Bawdsey Cliffs.  We did not want to arrive at the river bar too early.  ‘Talisker 1’ entered the river at 1730, two and half hours before HW Orford Haven, under main only.  There was plenty of water.

Rain was in the air as we approached first landing and I recognized ‘Tuesday’s’ tender and Doc rounding the last bend in the river before the moorings, a long way from the mother ship.  How good and kind is that?  Doc had been ashore and contemplated a sail in his Ten Footer, but decided the hint of rain was not enticing … so decided to come and meet us instead.

There was the odd gust as we came into the moorings and a flat out tender could not keep up.  But eventually, between the gusts, Doc managed to get a line on our transom and after some encouragement from me, climbed aboard.  We picked up the mooring together under main sail.  It’s always lovely to see our Doc.

I’ve enjoyed sailing locally and I can only marvel at the challenges and joy so close to home.

I’m back to my Sally tomorrow morning.