Ad Lib 4

King Harold's (aka Storm Dave's) vanguard approaches. A phalanx of lowering grey cloud, firing off volleys of forty knot squalls. Which whistle harmlessly over the heads of Stargazer and her (few) hardy travelling companions. Who shelter behind Dover's high harbour walls and higher white cliffs. 

We have chosen to wait for our weather window here, rather than in Ramsgate, both because of better shelter and of superior shoreside facilities (chandlers, supermarkets, choice of cliff walks and fuel forecourt proximity). Rather than in Sovereign Harbour, for financial reasons. On a weekly rate (swiftly secured, upon arrival, before the annual April 1st price rise) Dover is just over half of the cost of Sovereign. Where only a day rate is offered.

(Yesterday's pictures. See yesterday's post for King Harold reference)

Ad Lib 3

 Spring perfumes the Dover air. White clouds of cherry blossom adorn china blue skies. Beneath flint walls, laid in the aftermath of the 1066 Norman Conquest, daffodils unfurl their saffron standards.

Whilst Easter Bunnies sunbathe, ears pricked warily, upon the grassy slopes which crown the White Cliffs.

The air is so crisply clear that, from up here, beyond the bustle of the ferry port. . . .

. . . .the rectangular reactor halls, of the two (decommissioned) Dungeness nuclear power stations, are visible on the horizon. Fully twenty miles to the west.

At the cliff foot, the sea laps laguidly. Calm, for now. Above, clouds boil. A sign that Storm Dave is riding in from the north, astride the jetstream. Like a latter day King Harold, galloping south to do battle upon the Hastings shoreline.

Ad Lib 2

 Stargazer improvises her exit, before the impending month-long lock closure. Choosing the lesser of two evils. A light airs day; in preference to the thirty to forty knot blows otherwise on offer.

Darnet Fort slips slowly by. For we must fight the incoming tide, in order to have depth in the Copperas Channel. Now that neaps have passed unutilised, during a weekend of high winds and low temperatures.

Greylag and Oystercatchers serenade Stargazer from the steadily covering mud flats. As we hug the shallows to hasten our progress seaward.

A coaster rumbles by, in the main channel, making for the Chatham wharves.

Still close inshore, Stargazer turns east out of the Medway and into the Thames, at Garrison Point. Our speed rising as the foul tide slackens.

We pass the Reculver Towers, landmark for the Copperas Channel, with the tide fully turned beneath us. . . . .

. . . .and the North Foreland in sight. A creamy white wedge suspended between shades of silver and grey.

Stargazer reaps the reward, of her earlier tussle with the Medway Tide. The Thames ebb carrying her out to meet the Dover Strait’s south-going flow.

It sweeps us past the breakwaters of Ramsgate; the shingle shores and huddled houses of Deal. . . . 

. . . . around the South Foreland. Beneath the soaring salt stained White Cliffs of Dover.

Dover VTS radios Stargazer: "Keep on coming. Make your best speed. Come in astern of the ferry now departing." Here to wait, at our leisure, for a suitable weather window in which to proceed south.