The Crossing

 

Stargazer is close hauled, off Boulogne, in fifteen knots of north east breeze. The afternoon sun glints off her boiling wake. Our weather window has arrived. Our patience is amply rewarded. 

I check Stargazer's projected track, on the plotter. It predicts landfall around Romney Marsh. Fifteen nautical miles south of Dover, where we had planned to close with the British coast; and over thirty nautical miles south of Ramsgate, our intended destination for tonight. The spring tide, our ally, has yet to turn. Stargazer is pushing the last of the southbound tide.

A heat haze hangs in the air, as we pick our way across the shipping lanes. The silhouettes of the silent behemoths clearly discernible, but without detail. Even at a mile - which is as close as Stargazer likes to get. Inexorably the line of our projected track swings north. The fair tide is gathering pace beneath us.

Ahead, the low afternoon sun glints off the chalk buttress of the South Downs. The White Cliffs of Dover. Stargazer is making seven knots over the ground. Loping along, over a low swell, with the easy pace of a long distance runner.

I radio Dover port control, on channel seventy four: 

"Permission to cross east and west entrances, please." 

"Yes, we have you. Crossing the southbound lane. What is your destination?"

I am half expecting a quarantine related challenge, or news of some new clearance formality to be observed.

"Yes, we're coming up from the south, making for Ramsgate"

"You are clear to proceed. Maintain a listening watch, until you are well clear. Have a good trip"

Relief. I double click the transmit button, to acknowledge. And settle back into the tranquil reverie gifted by a sun filled, day long passage, in a fair wind.

Three tacks carry Stargazer up the Gull Stream, the channel inshore of the Goodwin Sands. The forbidding form of a Royal Navy warship looms out of the evening mists. As we pass, I see that she is at anchor. On migrant watch, no doubt. 

I make Stargazer fast under the high stone walls of Ramsgate harbour. Down below, I check forecasts, as a curry brews on the stove. The consensus is: wind swinging into the south west overnight. Building from a three to a five or six over Tuesday. Up to seven, 'perhaps gale eight' on Wednesday. Our weather window still holds. But we will need to press on tomorrow.

I sleep as the tide completes a cycle. Stargazer makes sail as the sun rises, slipping up past De Gallant moored off North Foreland. The former herring schooner, turned modern-day sail driven cargo carrier (https://blueschoonercompany.com/), is playing the same timeless game as us. Waiting for a fair tide to carry her into the London River. Lying to her anchor in the blue waters of the Channel. Sheltered by the high chalk cliffs.

Round the Foreland the wind freshens, unimpeded by those sheltering cliffs. Stargazer beats east, towards the Medway. Her rippling bow wave streaks the brown waters with white. Swirling cream into cocoa. The tide gathers pace beneath us and the wind builds. Both apparent and true. We are making good time. Almost too good. Stargazer arrives, at the shoal Copperas Channel, only an hour and a half after low water springs. The wind heads us. We short tack, nervously, making six and a half knots - with less than a metre between the glutinous Kentish mud and Stargazer's keel.

Up into the Medway Stargazer sweeps. Double reefed now. The wind funneling, gusting up and down between fifteen and twenty four knots. Allowing us to pinch up, in the squalls. To squeeze through the serpentine bends, with only a handfull of tacks. The last of the spring flood lending a helping hand. 

Thames grain barge, Edith May, (https://edithmaybargecharter.co.uk/) runs downriver, over the tide, toward us. Tan mainsail brailed up - not required, to achieve progress, in this breeze. Topsail, jibs and mizzen outstretched. Pennants flying. An East Coast welcome.