A Room with a View

Sunlight streams down through Stargazer’s open companionway, announcing that she’s swung to her anchor. The tide has turned. I climb on deck. 

And drink in the view. The wind is back in the south today. Fair, inviting and ideal for a sail north to the Orwell.

Stargazer fast reaches up The Wallet, on the starboard gybe - the genoa cross winched. I phone ahead, to Fox’s boatyard, to arrange attention for our incapacitated port winch.

The yard team are out on sea trials for the morning....which turns into the day.  Who can blame them on a perfect sailing day like this? I leave a message and an e mail. Stargazer thunders in under the saluting Felixstowe cranes. Eighteen knots of breeze drive her on up the Orwell.

We run in over the last of the ebb  - we’ve made good time, arrived before the flood has begun. Wooded banks rise around us. The waters still. The coughing call of a pheasant resonates in the silence. Followed by the bubbling song of a curlew. And the gossiping cries of a pair of orange billed oyster catchers, foraging on the foreshore.  Stargazer rounds up, drops sail and anchors beneath the woods, at Pin Mill. A new view to savour.