Double Celebration

Retirement day has come at last! The morning passes in an emotional welter of farewells and home baked treats. By afternoon I am aboard Stargazer sailing down river, to toast my good fortune in Godwit Creek.

A catamaran has got in first. There's room for us both, but there's still plenty of tide. Enough to explore further up the winding waterway. To seek another deep water pool. We sound our way up and anchor beneath a tall embankment. Soon a large bull seal hauls out and peers over toward us. 

One by one his family join him. The pups frolicking in the shallows, splashing exuberantly with their flippers. I lie in the sun aboard Stargazer. The seals sunbathe ashore. Every now and then we look across at each other. Mostly we doze contentedly through the afternoon. Thinking our own thoughts.

Its an early start for my birthday celebration. The sun rises as we pass the derricks, and a moored oil rig, at Sheerness. 

Our wind clears, as the land falls away. Stargazer beats north east in 20 knots of breeze. On a perfect day.

Spray flies. I'm sitting right forward in the cockpit, sheltered by the windscreen and securely wedged into position, as Stargazer fights her way over the short swell. Steadily gaining ground tack by tack. Past the Maplin Sands, through the Swin Spitway and up the Wallet.

One final tack caries us round the Naze, down the Medusa Channel and into the River Orwell. The container port at Flexistowe stands covid quiet. There are no ocean wandering ships unloading their cargoes.

We sweep on past Harwich. In this wind direction there will be no shelter to be had in the Stour.

We stand on, past wooded shores, into the Orwell proper.

That north east wind funnels and follows us up river. Our normal spot, below the house boats in Butterman's Bay, is strafed by gusts. Whitecaps chasing across wind darkened water. An RS200 dinghy planes past, kite up, crew hollering their delight.

The breeze stills in the lee of Nacton Quay, on the north bank, just above Pin Mill. There is no room for Stargazer to anchor because of a line of vacant moorings. We are soon secured to one . I look over to the Butt and Oyster, dabbling its toes in the water, on the Pin Mill water front. It, like the port, is covid quiet. No Suffolk ale or hearty fare being served for now.

I enjoy my birthday celebration sun downers aboard Stargazer.