Stargazer warms herself in the evening sun. Resting replete on her favoured berth, beneath the stonework of Ramsgate's harbour wall.
This morning we exchanged yesterday's light airs and clear skies for a sailor's breeze. Thundering down the north Kent shore. Following the twists and turns of the 'overland passage,' tack on tack. Two reefs in her main.
Skeins of misty drizzle dull the visibility and chill the bone. The Reculver Towers, ghostly grey, mark the pinch point, of the Copperas Channel. Three tacks and we are through. Into deeper waters. Heading for North Foreland and the English Channel.
Stargazer's bow lifts, as she feels the long swell beneath her. Relieved of the need to monitor the depth gauge, I gratefully drop below, to heat a tin of rice pudding. An inner hot water bottle, my night watch staple. Gratefully woolfed down, with a large dollop of strawberry jam. It’s warmth radiating within in me.
We lay the Foreland in one last tack, lifted by the wind shear created by the cliff. And break out into a spring day. I ease Stargazer's sheets and bear off for Ramsgate harbour. Stargazer lopes along easily as I rig fenders and radio the marina and port control, ready for our arrival.
There are no other boats about (to impede), so we sail into the heart of the harbour. Slowing as its sheltering walls still the breeze. Taking in the sights. The ecclectic mix of craft: sharp nosed flybridge pleasure palaces, bluff bowed liveaboard wide beam barges and an historic tug.
Above us, the grand facades of the seaside terraces and the tall square-set church tower clamber up the hillside. A sounding board for the echoing calls of the gulls which circle above the fishing fleet.
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