Out of Lockdown 6

 

The inshore lifeboat leaves harbour in a welter of spray.

Overnight the wind has risen, from the north. Wind battles tide, throwing up steep breaking seas.

A yacht, beating up from the south, cannot negotiate the ("L" shaped) harbour mouth, without her engine. (the narrow final section is dead to windward). And the engine will not start. A tow from the RNLI saves the day.

The Royal Temple Yacht Club Sunday race fleet has already put to sea. Departing the pontoons with bravura and elan.

Still the breeze builds. Marbling the steely grey seas with foaming manes of white, wind driven, spray.

The racers surf downwind. Sun glinting off drum tight spinnakers. Crews well aft. Keeping the bow up, manning spinnaker guys, the vang, the running backstays, the sheets. Steering as deep as they dare. Balancing an unintended gybe, to leeward, against a broach, to windward, in the quartering swell.

They are close inshore now. The water shoaling fast. Seas building. They must gybe. Forward goes the bowman (to handle the spinnaker pole). 

Waves rake the deck. The bow digs in. The stern slews to leeward. The helmsman wrestles her back on course. Into the turn, that will carry her stern through the eye of the wind, into her gybe.

Stargazer sits patiently in the calm of the harbour, hood up and snug in the sunshine. Waiting for her slant. The wind is forecast to drop tomorrow and veer easterly on Tuesday. Which would give us a reach up to the Suffolk rivers.

Out of Lockdown 5

Saturday strollers soak up the strong spring sun. The gentlest of breezes ruffles emerald green waters, in the inner harbour. 

 Warmth radiates off ornate kiln fired red Victorian brick.

A keen northerly wind cuts across the outer harbour. Stargazer's ensign snaps and cracks. Her sprayhood is turned up, like a coat collar, to ward off the chill. The breeze has outwitted us.

Our plan, in sailing east to Ramsgate, was to gain a favourable slant (in the forecast north easterly airflow) to make for the Suffolk Rivers. Now the wind has backed north (thus heading us) and strengthened. The Border Force cutter Valiant has put into port. A sign that wind and seas are expected to run high enough to curtail migrant crossings, for a day or two.

Forecasts are, once more, equivocal. Some indicate a northerly breeze tomorrow. Some a favourable easterly. Some twenty five knots others eighteen. Snug below, in Stargazer's sun warmed cabin, listening to the whistle of the wind overhead, I have prepared our passage plan. Let us see what tomorrow's dawn brings, by way of breeze. There is no great hurry to be on our way. We are cruising under sail.

Out of Lockdown 4

 

Down at the fish dock, the boats are in. Skippers pace the pontoons, phones to their ears, negotiating the sale of their catch.

Out on the beach, lone windswept figures walk. Drawn to the crash of the waves on the shore and the limitless horizon beyond.

Elevenses is served, upstairs on the balcony of the Royal Pavilion. Children romp on the sands.

The bohemian cafes, beneath the red brick arches of the cliff front dock road, fill with shoppers returning. . . .

. . .  from the cobbled streets above. . .

. . . the thronged inner harbour.

Out of Lockdown 3

 

Ramsgate harbour mouth opens before us. Spring sunshine plays across the waterfront within. Warm and inviting. Stout stone walls still the chill breeze. Stargazer slips into their embrace.

We had a rousing beat out of the Medway and down along the north Kent shore. Twenty knots of north east wind drove Stargazer, double reefed, through the shoal waters of first the Four Fathoms Channel and then the Copperas Channel.

Past Margate Hook and on into the Gore Channel. The water deeper and bluer now. Our bows dipping to sea swells marching in from the English Channel . Misted spray blowing aft along the heeled deck, as we round North Foreland.

South we swoop, to Ramsgate. Sheets eased now. The conductor has slowed the tempo. Gone are the dashing crescendos of our day long beat. Replaced by a swelling joyous chorus. Wind and tide lifting us along in the afternoon sun.

Out of Lockdown 2

 A black squall cloud and a splash of sunshine banish the morning sea fog and herald the arrival of twenty five knots of north easterly breeze . I awoke to the mournful lowing of ships out in the London River. Basso profundo fog horns reverberating eerily in the opaque stillness of  dawn.

This morning the forecasts are all in agreement. The wind will blow hard. Now, up on the sea wall, beyond the sheltering ramparts of the creek, the wind turbines have begun to turn - gathering momentum as the breeze builds.

For once, Stargazer's sprayhood is up. Sheltering me as I sit in the cockpit, savouring the roar of the wind and the lap of the water. Reacquainting myself with the unique sensations of being afloat. That sense of freedom to wander, to linger or to simply be.  

Out of Lockdown

 

Long legged avocet line the shore of the creek. Their bold, black barred, plumage aglow in the afternoon sun. Their shrill yelping cries mingling with the waves of birdsong, which wash over the mudflats like a balm to the soul.

One wades into the shallows. Sifting the heady salt marsh admixture of water and silt for sustenance. Upturned beak casting from side to side.

A godwit, in rufous summer plumage already, ambles down to join the avocet. Peering doubtfully into the tea brown waters.

Stargazer is anchored in Godwit creek. 'Our' spot in Sharfleet creek. Well sheltered to the north and the east. Tomorrow's forecast is equivocal - depending on the weather site consulted. We will either have a fine eighteen knot passage making breeze or a stiff twenty seven knots. In either case from the north east. If the latter, we'll stay put in our sheltered bay. If the former, we will make for Ramsgate on the morning tide.

For now, we are recharging our batteries, in the still of the creek . Stargazer, literally, with her solar panels deployed. Myself, figuratively, drinking in the chorus of birdsong, the avian antics and the open horizons which surround us. Relishing the release from lockdown.

This morning we locked out of the marina and stole downriver. Riding the ebb, past Upnor village. Shafts of sunlight periodically piercing swirling banks of sea fog.

We beat downriver in a zephyr of easterly breeze. Wind and sun strengthening as we sail.

We slip into the familiar mouth of 'our' creek at low water. The first of the flood helping us in, as the sun boils off the last whisps of the mist. Eager to begin a new season of adventure.

A Fair Portent

 

Stargazer's topsides gleam once more. Crisp spring days, in the week after Easter, have enabled rapid progress with her scraping, polishing and antifouling.

The days are noticeably longer now. The sun warmer - where shelter can be found from the keen wind. One by one gaunt grey, winter bare, trees are reborn luxuriant and green .

On the eve of Stargazer's relaunch, she basks in the last rays of the setting sun. Eager to re enter the water - to begin a new sailing season.

On the morning of our launch, the seal is at play off the crane dock.

Gamboling, in aquatic back somersaults, jaws agape. A lithe master of the subsurface world, here to welcome us home.

We cast off. With a final forward roll, the seal dives.

Stargazer follows her newfound friend out of the dock and back to the berth. The breeze eases to a mirror calm. Perfect weather in which to bend the sails on. A fair portent for a new season.