Early Bird 5

 

Stargazer lies snugly tucked beneath Woolverstone's wooded bluff.

Upriver, storm clouds are gathering over the Orwell bridge. Massing from the north. 

Soon they bring snow. The herald of a two day gale, spawned in Siberia.

Yesterday we rode the front of the low. Taking advantage of the easterly slant, which it had brought to the morning breeze. Close reaching fast, past North Foreland, in twenty knots apparent.

Forging our way across the shipping lanes of the London River. Two reefs in the main. 

Swooping through the Fisherman's Gat, across the Long Sand. The outer of the three shoals, which splay like fingers, spanning the Thames Estuary. 

Stargazer's sheets are eased. Her reefs shaken out. Making seven, tidally assisted, knots over the ground.

By midday we are emerging into the Black Deep. The channel running between the Long Sand and Sunk Sand. A heavily laden container ship steams north. Stargazer hugs the shoals, as she passes. The breeze is easing. We lay the Sunk Head in one tack. Beating in twelve knots apparent, beneath sunny skies. I sup hot soup, straight from the pan, propped in the companionway.

Stargazer skims the northern tip of the Sunk Sand, followed by that of the Gunfleet Sand (the landward two of the three shoal 'fingers'). Broad reaching shoreward on a zephyr. I moult my thermal layers, one by one. 

We gybe into the Medusa Channel. Reaching in from The Naze to the shingle of the Harwich foreshore.

The first of the flood is at the river mouth to greet us. Carrying Stargazer through the wind shadow of the Felixstowe dockside. A squall, beneath an opaque wall of rain, hastens us upstream.

Early Bird sailors must take the spring weather as it comes. We soon savour our reward. As Stargazer secures alongside, safely in ahead of the gale, a splash of late evening sunshine bathes us in golden light.