We left Poole this morning bound for Dartmouth on the promise of 15kt wind and warmish temperatures.  What we ended up with was a rather good 30kt before lunch and next to nothing afterwards.  We have been flopping around for hours in the middle of Lyme Bay in a slight swell and the rattling and slatting of sails is driving me mad.  We are far enough off shore for there to be nothing to see apart from bits of sky that are marginally less grey than other bits of sky plus the odd glimpse of a military jet in the vicinity; Alex saw what looked like an airborne missile.

We’ve spent the last few days in the Solent-Poole area.  An interesting collection of ships visible from the water in Portsmouth: the 1860 HMS Warrior, our new aircraft carrier, many yachts and ferries.  Apparently Port Control deal with 80,000 boat movements a year through a harbour entrance 200 yards wide.  Being too mean to pay tourist rates to see the commercial attractions, we had a pleasant walk down to Southsea via the imposing naval war memorial and coastal defences of different eras.

Later across to Newtown River on the Isle of Wight for a couple of nights (very busy) and then over to Poole (even more busy).

Poole harbour is huge, but most of it is too shallow for us at low water!  I had forgotten, until I saw it on the chart, that Rockley Point is here – home to a sailing school where, years ago, I learned to sail a Topper.  There has been a Regatta during the bank holiday weekend and I have never seen so many sailing craft on the water at the same time: we watched them pour out of the harbour in the morning and back in the evening, a hundred or more in different shapes and sizes, most with big crews of 8-10 people.  Some very expensive sailing kit on show (Alex wants some of those black sails) but also plenty of more modest craft and motorboats of all sizes.  As all the marinas have been full, we have been very economical on our berthing fees this week.

Although we weren’t able to get ashore in Poole, we were able to pick up Owain and family for a fun day out.  Owain claims they are sailing novices, but they seemed naturals to us, as we ran across to Swanage Bay for lunch rolling around at anchor, followed by a fun bit of tacking and jibing practice in the shadow of all those black-sailed racing yachts.  Returning to Poole to drop them off we couldn’t even get a temporary berth to drop off and had to resort to a rather unnerving landing at the town quay against the wall.  We have brought fender boards but didn’t have time to put them on before arriving at the wall.  Thanks to the friendly and helpful guy who grabbed our lines as we wondered how to reach a cleat that was far above our heads!

It was all going well until Alex needed to go to the toilet.

We ran out of wind halfway between Brighton and Chichester.  Disappointing to have to put the engine on after sailing all the way from Gillingham but the alternative was missing the tide for the Looe channel north of Selsey Bill.  Without any wind, we would have found ourselves going backwards for the evening and we were already cold enough not to fancy it much.

As it was, we motored the 3 hours to Chichester, ‘put our foot down’ hard to get across the rapidly ebbing tide and scraped across the bar with 0.5m water under our keel to pick up a buoy off Hayling island.  Dinner at a relatively civilised 9pm, woke up to sun, views, little wind and the hope of a lazy day.

Then toilet trouble.  The thing was happy enough to pump matter out (thankfully!) but not to flush.  At least water for flushing is easy to come by, even if a bucket-over-the-side isn’t as convenient as a pump.  Presuming the inlet to be blocked, we started dismantling the pipework.  Pipes attached to holes below the waterline are secured with double jubilee clips, which becomes amusing when you find out how hard they are to shift.  Wrestling with them is unnerving because of the force it applies to the through-hull fitting – these are bullet proof when installed well and in good condition but you really don’t want one to fail.  Ours are metal and have spent the last 20 years in a corrosive marine environment.

The whole set-up is unsatisfactory on many fronts and is on our future projects list to sort out:

1. A mix of metric and imperial sizes means nothing fits properly – things are either so tight they are near-impossible to remove or need tape to make them seat.
2. The though-hull fitting is connected to a T-piece (as the salt water is used both by the toilet flush and a salt water rinse in the galley). The geometry is too complicated and hard to clear.
3. You can’t unscrew the T-piece because it fouls the handle on the seacock. Didn’t really fancy dismantling that, but there didn’t seem to be much of an alternative.
4. Best of all, the inlet for the toilet flush and galley is about 6” in front of the discharge from the toilet. Fantastic!!  Noted not to use the toilet and the galley at the same time…

With everything in pieces, we recovered a reasonable quantity of seaweed and blew the rest back out through the seacock.  Hadn’t realised the stuff was so effective for plugging holes, might keep some in our emergency kit in future.  Finally, as we’d got all the cushions up in the aft cabin, we did some engine checks.  It was the first decent run for the engine and it looks fine.  Good news after all.  Time for tea and the rest of Jerry’s ginger biscuits.  Just need to go to the toilet first…

Others may have been watching the Royal wedding, FA cup, etc.; we are watching Beachy Head.  We have been watching it for quite a while, a consequence of arriving at exactly the wrong time.  We are making 5 knots through the water, not bad with 11 knots of wind, but less than two over the ground.  That’s the trouble with the worst of a spring tide coming the other way around the headland…

Delighted to be joined by Jerry for this leg from Ramsgate to Brighton.  A long-serving previous member of Littlehampton lifeboat crew, he arrived just in time to rescue a man that had fallen in the water while berthing his yacht.  The pontoons are too high out of the water for anyone to get out without help!  In spite of his obvious heroism, he hasn’t yet convinced us to get the compass adjusted.

We left a tippy berth, a bit too close to the harbour entrance, mid-afternoon yesterday.  Spent most of the night ghosting past Dungeness under the stars – 11 knots of wind is as good as it has been, mostly it has been much less and the passage plan based on a 5 knot average speed soon started to look ambitious.

A beautiful night, but cold and damp.  Many layers, still cold.  Almost bailed in a moment of tiredness after breakfast, tempted by Eastbourne.  But held our ground.  We won’t be there by mid-afternoon today– but have high hopes for tea time.  Could be worse.  The sun is out and the cruising chute is up.  Another 30 min of sleep would make it perfect.

 

It was emotional leaving Gillingham.  The marina is a very special environment – insulated from real life by the security barrier is a tranquil oasis.  It has its oddities but you can live with them once you understand them.  The staff are fabulous and the whole site feels cared for; it has become home from home.

Day 1: 32 miles sailed.  We are moored at Harty Ferry, tucked behind the Isle of Sheppey (which is about as close as you would want to get to it), en route to Ramsgate.  Ramsgate is do-able in a long day but with a late start favourable due to the tide, and strong winds forecast, we figured that a gentle start would be good.

Not really that gentle when it came to it.  A steady 28-33kt northerly all day – Force 7.  There are 2 reefing lines available to pull the end of a smaller sail down to the boom.  Every year we mess up rigging them in one way or another and this was no exception: instead of rigging reef 1 and 2, we accidentally rigged reef 2 and 3.  Fortuitous as it turned out: we have had 2 reefs in all day and that was quite enough sail.  Had the conditions become any stronger would have been looking at reef 3, which would have been a first for us.  As it was we had an exciting but rather wet beat to windward to get clear of the Medway and then were blown up the Swale at 6kn under a double reefed jib and no main.

So quite a test for our first day out!  So far, so good.  The rigging looks OK, Alex’s new engine temperature gauge works, the diesel cabin heater started (always a worry) so we can dry out and warm up.  Just as we arrived the sun came out and we have been treated to a fine sunset and a dozen seals sitting on the mud.  If we thought sailing round the UK would be tough, the chap on the mooring next to us seems to be doing a round Britain row.  Unlike us, he has got his live position working on his website!

Alex is looking at the plan for the rest of the way to Ramsgate tomorrow and is trying to convince me there is no benefit in starting early…

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We are nearly ready!  After many trips back and forward with tools, gear, and projects in various stages of completion, yesterday we made the last car trip.  The next journey will be one way, by train.  The interior, covered for months in protective cladding, has been cleaned, waxed and Scotch-Guarded.  Helen is hoping the smell will have gone in a couple of days (Alex seems to like it).

The many curved cubby holes behind and underneath every flat surface have been stacked meticulously with spares, gear, tools (will we really need an angle grinder?) and pasta, rice and Alpen in enormous quantities.  At home the cupboards are bare and the piles of “work in progress” have shrunk to nothing.

And the nerves have started.  The enormity of what we are planning has finally sunk home.  There are a lot of miles and some wild stretches of water in front of us.  Every time we push the boundaries of what we do, I wake up feeling nauseous and wish I had remembered from past experience to opt for a quiet life.  I will miss the garden.  We did a final tidy the other day and coated the borders with bark mulch to keep water in and weeds down, so it is looking better than it has for ages!  It is green and brown, with spots of red, white and purple flower.  The coastal landscape has a very blue-grey palette.

Alex doesn’t bother with these nerves but will miss the shower.

Today’s blog was originally to be called “toilet humour”, reflecting recent frustrating experience.  However, a sail to Stangate Creek in the early summer sunshine has been so delightful that it seems inappropriate.  Stangate Creek is our favourite muddy backwater on the river Medway, a sheltered and peaceful spot with nothing but water, sky and a strip of mud and low vegetation between the two.  It’s a couple of hours from Gillingham under sail and an obvious choice for a shakedown trip.  We made a joint trip with our marina neighbours Robin and Jo: they were up for some company for their first night at anchor on their new boat and we certainly were, having had most of the boat in pieces over the winter and not being sure what was going to go wrong next.

Glorious conditions: almost warm, just about enough wind, clear sky.  Engine temperature off the scale just after getting out of the marina.  Opps.  Shut down asap, luckily we have a more reliable means of propulsion.  Admittedly coolant a bit low but seemed rather quick to overheat.  Voltmeter out again: running the engine from cool shows the resistance of the sender dropping from ~800Ω to ~150 as it warms up.  Seems plausible so it looks like the engine and the temperature sender are ok and we need a new gauge.

Engine / gearbox oil under observation.  Possible traces of oil in the engine bay.  Will clean out and review.

Intermediate shrouds a little slack under sail.  Easy fix.  Light wind, but so far so good with the rigging.

For the first time we deployed an anchor buoy.  Attached to the anchor crown with a short line, it is supposed to mark the position of the anchor and, if it fouls an underwater obstruction you can drag it out backwards using the spare line.  Unlikely in good east coast mud but a good precaution in rockier environments that we will get further west and north.  The buoy disappeared without trace although we did spot it briefly at low water.  Towed under by the tide, perhaps – need something more buoyant!

The electric outboard needs >10A fuse.  Otherwise, it was a triumph, including the home made mounting system.  Powers the kayak well and got us to dinner on Lady Jo in fine style and without getting soaked.  Should have packed the black tie dinner wear after all?

Finally, and significantly, the toilet works!  Marine toilets are regarded as sensitive beasts and ours had taken to not flushing when we are at sea.  A new pump barrel and additional one-way valve on the salt water inlet (flush) should have been easy to install, and weren’t.  Late on Friday evening, wrestling with waste pipes, our sense of humour was slipping away.  However, waking this morning, at anchor, with blue sky visible through the forehatch, reflections of rippling water playing on the ceiling, birds calling all around and the possibility of a working toilet, those hassles seemed far away.