Stargazer leaves Chatham lock like Aladdin’s genie leaving the lamp. Away on her summer cruise. I hoist full sail and put her before the wind. She flies downriver on the ebb, in twenty knots of breeze, making eight knots over the ground.
I hand the main as we leave the river. We are two hours ahead of schedule and will enter (the shallow) Four Fathoms channel at low water.
Our speed reduces to a more manageable five knots. We sniff our way through the shoals with between one and a half and three metres beneath the keel.
Grey seals while away a grey morning in the shelter of The Swale.
Some take more interest in our passing than others.
Stargazer rounds up beneath the green lawns of the Harty Ferry Inn. Off the causeway.
Under the familiar bluff bows of Ironsides.
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