Stargazer slips joyfully down the Medway on the evening tide. A footloose week of cruising in prospect.
We anchor below Thames Port...
...ready to set off at break of day.
A benign south westerly force four carries us into the dawn.
We gybe languorously across the Thames shipping lanes, on a sun filled September morning, heading north. Skirting the Maplin Sands, making for the shallow Swin Spitway. Gateway to the Suffolk Rivers.
In an instant, an autumnal blast banishes the sun from the sky with leaden grey clouds. The wind rises, with a shriek. Force 5, force 6, force 7, gusts of 8. Stargazer's ensign lashes the cockpit. We broach up uncontrollably. Over powered and over canvassed, fully committed to the narrow spit way, less than half a metre beneath the keel, no room to turn (to reef).
Ahead of us a stately Thames barge suffers the same undignified fate. She lets fly main, topsail and mizzen to stay on her feet. We follow suit, ragging our way into deeper water under a cacophony of flogging sailcloth, beating sheets and straining rigging.
Stargazer surfs north, making between 8 and 9 knots. Now back under control with a double reefed jib and no main. Riding the swells, past The Naze and down into the Medusa Channel. Our intended destination is the River Deben, entered by its notoriously shoal bar and shifting approach channel..
These are not the conditions to feel our way into that river. Instead Stargazer ducks inside Landguard Point and sweeps up the River Orwell.
We round up in the shelter of Pin Mill's wooded shore...
...and drop anchor. Perhaps conditions will be fair for the Deben tomorrow.Cruising in September can be a serendipitous affair.
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