Out of Lockdown 20

 

It would be hard to say which of us is the more surprised, the goose, or I. We both stand stock still, startled, heads raised, staring at one another. I have come on the family, of Canada Geese, as I round a bend on the sea wall. Behind their mother, a brood of yellow and grey downed goslings feed, oblivious to the potential for danger, which I represent.

Mother knows better. Together with her mate, which has suddenly appeared from the foot of the slope, she swiftly shepherds her family away from the path. Putting a safe distance between themselves and the shore.

Once out in the tidal lagoon, their pace slackens. The goslings fan out, jink right and left in play. The parents strain their long necks, to keep one eye on the goslings and one on me. I tiptoe past, as slowly and unobtrusively as I can.

The lagoons have been created by breaching a section of the sea wall and adding sluices, to control water levels. The result is a sheltered area which contains a mixture of salt marsh and open water. An ideal habitat for breeding birds and Sunday anglers alike.

A bridle path leads up from the dyke.

Through well tilled and tended arable farmland.

And out onto the main street of Trimley St Martin.

I top up Stargazer's stores in the village shop.

Meanwhile, back by the river, the weather is settling. Sunday racing is in full swing. The forecasts, for the week ahead, are looking promising and the tides are coming fair.

Out of Lockdown 19

 

I scan the news feeds eagerly. Tune in to the BBC. Grant Shapps, Transport Secretary, has called a news conference. What hand will he deal us, for our summer cruise? Which countries will be on the UK Green List, of permitted leisure travel destinations, this summer?

Evocative island destinations abound: St Helena, Tristan de Cunha, Ascension, The Falklands, South Georgia. The list goes on. All distant mid ocean stopovers, beyond Stargazer's reach.

I search in vain for our favourite landfalls: France and Ireland. Portugal is included (although it is not currently admitting leisure travellers, either to the mainland or to the Azores) as is Gibraltar. Both are within reach, of a concerted summer-long cruise, but with an over-winter stay required, before returning the following season. That option now complicated by the, post-Brexit, Schengen stay limit (ninety days in any rolling one hundred and eighty days) and by the difficulty in reaching either, with French ports pronounced off limits.

,

A visit to The Cruising Association website lifts my spirits. As things stood, sailors were required to enter, or leave, France only via one of the ferry ports; and by seeking out the Police aux Frontieres, in town or in the ferry terminal, during working hours, to manually present documents and fill forms. In practice, highly restrictive to a boat on passage. An on line process, permitting access or egress through any French port is now being rolled out, with a pilot scheme already started in Le Havre . Welcome news. . . . . .for the future.

For now, yesterday's bucolic tranquility has been banished. It is a day to sit below, contemplating. With that special snug and secure feeling, brought by being warm and dry whilst, outside, rain drums on Stargazer's deck and the wind whistles in her rigging. I consider our options, for this summer's cruise. At the end of the month I will received my second vaccination. We will be free to set sail.

 The wind, warmer now, from the south, is due to drop over the next couple of days. The sun to return. Bringing the opportunity to explore the enticing paths, winding away into the countryside. Whilst we wait for the tides to come fair, for the next leg of this shakedown cruise. South to the Essex shore.

Out of Lockdown 18

 

Candyfloss cumulus clouds sail serenely across a cobalt blue summer sky . A retired lightship, now club house to the Haven Ports Yacht Club, towers, bold and red, above the moored boats.

The art of boat maintenance is gently practiced. This, long keeled wooden classic, has the look of a Kim Holman (native of these parts) design. She looks too large to be a Twister (twenty eight feet) and has no Twister emblem engraved into her cavita line forward. She's not a Stella either, they are shorter than a Twister (twenty six feet) and are clinker built. I cannot place her. I walk on puzzling. Seeking to put an elusive name to a familiar face.

This morning Stargazer locked out of the Ipswich wet dock. 

Passing the sweeping sheers, spoon bows and long graceful counters, of the Spirit yachts in build.

We hoist the main immediately. The tide has just turned. We ride the ebb down towards the bridge, on a more or less dead run (hence no jib). Gybing from time to time, as the wind shifts and the channel turns.

Down river, we glide silently, past wooded banks and craft dozing on their moorings.

We set the jib off Pin Mill. Sailing the angles. Gybing our way gently downriver. Outpacing boats making their stately way under jib alone.

Ahead, to port, lie the cranes and container ships of Felixstowe. Ahead to starboard, the mouth of the river Stour. With the Harwich freight ferry just leaving, for the weekly Baltic run. Abeam to port, the pole withies, which mark the entrance to Suffolk Yacht Harbour at Levington.

I douse the sails and steer Stargazer in under the grassy bank, to bask in the sunshine. 

Out of Lockdown 17

 

The morning sun peers over the rooftops and into the, slowly waking, streets of Ipswich. Pedestrians and cyclists begin to go about the business of a crisp new day.

Joggers pound the pavements.

The market stalls are just opening. I pause to fill my rucksack, and shopping bags, with fresh fruit and vegetables.

Nearby, an enticing patisserie is being unlocked. I loiter and then enter to buy bread and pastries.

Here, in the town square, the facades are grand. . .

. . . formal and ornate.

I duck through an archway. A welcomingly cosy informality resumes. Houses, and a stone built church, from a multitude of eras, nestle comfortably together. 

Returning to the dock. . . 

. . . I pass reminders, of its past . Fison's padlocked depot . . .

. . . and the Paul's (they of barge owning and folly building fame) mill, now under demolition. Both stand, forlorn and disused, awaiting new destinies. Sea wrack, at the high water mark of a tide of redevelopment, which sweeps upriver toward them. Downstream, the University of Suffolk, pubs, restaurants and apartments have sprung up. They replace dead and decayed dockside businesses and bring new life.

As, in a different manner, does a half sized replica of Noah's (or in Dutch, Verhalen's) Ark . Moored to seaward of the University, for the past two years, it is a religious art installation, on tour from its native Netherlands.

There is new life too at Spirit Yachts, magicians in wood and epoxy. Their carpenters conjour thoroughly contemporary craft in a classic mould.

Today the waters of the dock are mirror calm. Stargazer lies re- provisioned. Ready to take advantage of tomorrow's forecast fair wind and tide. Despite our ringside seat, and peerless view, we plan to be on our way. Ahead of a weekend of stormy weather.

PS: Please forgive a similar end picture to yesterday's. My only excuse is that, in today's, the light is rather better and, to my eye, the unbroken reflections add a certain something. It is also a view of which I very much enjoy being reminded !

Out of Lockdown 16

 

The sailing barge Victor lies moored beneath the grand colonnades of the former Customs House, on the Ipswich waterfront.

Stargazer wound her way upriver, through prime Suffolk parkland, past the fairy tale folly. Built by a member of the wealthy Paul dynasty, of barge owners, millers and maltsters.

Under the outstretched arms of the Orwell bridge. The road traffic invisible, but audible as a swishing roar.

Stargazer rounds a starboard hand mark. The steel pilings of a quay and tall cranes appear. We have arrived in the port of Ipswich. I radio the lock. "You have a green to enter."

Slowly the water level rises, until the gates ahead of us swing open, to reveal the wet dock. A grain ship is moored alongside the quay, hatches open. Behind the ship, waterside apartment blocks, named after the mills which once stood on their plots (as recently as when I kept Missee Lee on the Orwell).

We tie up in the heart of town.

Out of Lockdown 15

 

"Off out?" I enquire.

A quizzical, perhaps incredulous, look. "Not today. Look at the weather!" It turns out that the boat is being taken down to the tide line to be 'wet .' To allow her timbers, shrunken by the drying effect of being ashore over the winter, to swell. so that her seams become watertight once more. 

A full gale is blowing. Thirty five, gusting forty, knots from the north west. Ships hurry in from the sea, making light work of conditions in the shelter of the river.

Smaller craft stagger and buck on their moorings.
 

White horses career down river. Frothing and foaming as they tussle with the incoming tide.

It is a day to stay ashore.

In the shelter of the woods.

The wind is forecast to drop overnight and to back west or southwest. Favourable directions in which to explore upriver. Perhaps lock into the wet dock, in the centre of Ipswich.

For now, Stargazer remains tucked, tight in, beneath the lee of the hill. The wind whistles and shrieks overhead. Occasional stray gusts ruffle the ensign, and a dusting of shattered leaves flutters down into the cockpit, but here the water is calm, the wind stilled. 

Out of Lockdown 14

 

Nancy Blackett. Twenty eight feet over the deck . Built by David Hillyard of Littlehampton, ninety years ago. In the halcyon days, of respite, between the horrors of two world wars. Arthur Ransome's favourite of all his boats. Named after the leader of the 'Amazons' (in his book Swallows and Amazons) and herself heroine, under the pseudonym 'Goblin,' of  'We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea.'

A tale I have read and re-read since childhood . My well thumbed copy carried aboard first Missee Lee, then Goblin and now Stargazer, on our cruises.

Nancy Blackett's name unexpectedly appears, on the phone screen, when I search for Stargazer's position, using an AIS app. She is headed upriver toward Ipswich, but the position report is from Saturday. Since then, no further transmissions have been received. Her current whereabouts are unknown.

The Nancy Blackett Trust website informs me that, over the winter, she refitted at Robertsons' yard, on the River Deben. Then, on May Day, she set sail, bound for Woolverstone. 

I scan the forest of aluminium masts which surrounds Stargazer. Seeking out, and studying closely, the few gleaming golden varnished wooden spars. One, taller than most, with a shapely taper, takes my eye. I walk towards it, my excitement rising.

A lithe low form, from a more elegant era, lies boxed between more lumpen craft . I have found Nancy Blackett . Her name just visible, hand carved into two, richly glowing, mahogany boards, adorning her snowy white transom. Cordage fresh. Bright work lustrous. Ready to put to sea.

I am lost in a storybook whirl of inspiration, dreams and reminiscences. Kaleidoscopically conjured from my memories of cruises under sail, some to Vlissingen, where Goblin voyaged, in the book ; from recollections of when I first received and read the book ; from the tale itself, of the 'Swallows' unintentionally navigating the North Sea, to the Netherlands.

POST SCRIPT

 If you wonder, as I do, what Nancy Blackett looks like under sail, or below decks, the enthusiasts of the Trust have put together this YouTube video to show us. In it they tell the tale of how she was saved from dereliction and restored, to cruise the seas once more. A tale worthy of Ransome himself.