Fair Wind

A sea breeze is filling in, as Stargazer sails out past the Scheveningen mole. Today crowded with Saint's Day Anglers.

We beat out with the J boat race fleet, mustering for their start. The gaining tack sends us north, well above the rhumb line of our course. Disappointment soon turns to delight as I realise that, so long as the wind really does turn to the forecast northerly once we're offshore, this is a better course than the one I had planned.

Standing north lifts us above various pieces of fixed marine iron-mongery, the busy Maas shipping anchorage, the Maas junction and the North Hinder marine roundabout (which we will cross after nightfall). All places where many hundreds of thousands of tonnes of shipping are manoeuvering at close quarters. Not places for Stargazer, or her like, to be. Especially after dusk.

The wind falls light about 15 miles out......but, joy of joys, veers north east. I waste no time in hoisting the cruising chute. Stargazer serenely nods and curtsies her way into the sunset. I take the opportunity to cook up one of my 'eat out of the pan' suppers.

Overnight, the moon is trapped behind a veil of thin high cloud, which it back lights with an ethereal glow. There is enough light to be able to handle cruising chute gybes (which require furling and unfurling the chute, up on the foredeck). I decide to carry the chute into the night and through the North Hinder shipping lanes - where, I can already see from the AIS, there will be some ducking and weaving to do.

Dawn breaks steely and grey. By now we're clear of shipping lanes and have only to thread the gap between the East Anglia 1 wind farm and the Galloper wind farm. The breeze is fully in the north now, building fast. I drop the chute. Stargazer shoulders the swells aside, a bone between her teeth, her bow wave cascading magnificently aft - high white and wide. As white and wide as the smile on my face.

A thunder storm produces white out conditions in the Felixstow approach channel. I snatch two reefs in the main, between tacks, as Stargazer romps in alongside a giant Cosco container ship. We short tack, in the shallows, through the docks; then dive off into the wooded seclusion of the River Orwell. At Pin Mill, the trees calm the wind. The sun breaks through. Stargazer sounds in and anchors - 25 hours and 130 nautical miles out of Sheveningen.

My first priority is a full sit down meal eaten at a table on which multiple drinks and dishes may be spread out and sampled at will.

I eat my fresh (from a Den Haag deli) walnut and feta ravioli seated below, savouring both the food and the view over the stern.