Down Channel 5

 

Impatient to be back at sea, with a fair breeze, Stargazer barrels out through Dover's western entrance. Two reefs in the main. Twenty two knots true, on her quarter. The good wishes of Port Control ringing in our ears.

There are still almost three hours of foul tide to run. But I reason that any progress, however slow, is worth having. And it is too good a sailing day to be be sat in port waiting for the tide.

Stargazer shames me, with my doubts about making progress. Foul spring tide or no, we are immediately making four and a half knots over the ground.

Rising to better than five, once we tuck close in beneath the chalk cliffs, seeking out the slackest water. Or an early turning eddy.

We hold our inshore course until high gabled houses peer out from the wooded shore, behind Folkestone's breakwater. To seaward, two grey rectangles stand static on a seething horizon. They are the Dungerness nuclear power stations. The low spit, on which they are built, lost behind the tumbling march of the waves.

We gybe out to sea. The tide is on the turn. Now we want to feel its full force. Stargazer's ground track describes an arc, westward, over the next two hours. We are still broad reaching, on the port tack. But, such is the strength of the tide, our course has altered by thirty degrees or more. Our speed over ground is touching nine knots.

The jut, of Dungerness' shingle snout, spearing into the Channel wind and tide, stirs a breaking sea. Soon past. Twenty five miles ahead lies Sovereign Harbour. Now averaging seven to eight knots, and back on the starboard give, we have a full four hours of fair tide still to run. Stargazer may make it in before dark.

We sweep on. Shaking reefs out as the wind eases to sixteen, then fourteen true. Splashes of afternoon sun chase across Stargazer's boiling wake. The seas flatten. The wind eases. The tide begins to slacken. . .  then to turn. Stargazer is loping along at five knots, once more. Twilight gathers. Dusk falls. I switch the instruments over to night view. Peering ahead into the darkness. Soothed by the soporific hiss and swish as Stargazer silently surges over the hidden swells. 

 I pick out the occulting reds and greens, of the breakwater beacons, against the shimmer of shore lights. The one I need to identify is the flashing white, of the safe water mark. From there I will be guided down the approach channel by the sector light.* But I cannot make it out. Even with the help of the chart plotter. Which says we are almost on top of it . I dowse sail. To give a wider field of view. . . .and in case we need to back track swiftly. Then I see the safe water mark. We are indeed right on top of it. The jib had masked it. 

*A Sector Light shows white for safely on course. Green for too far to starboard. Red for too far to port. A course, from Sovereign Harbour's safe water mark, with the sector light showing white, leads through the breakwater, avoiding a shoal, a wreck and, most likely, any lurking pot buoys.