Ad Lib 8

Now this is more like a first sail of the season! For that is how I shall remember it.The golden light of dawn. Sixteen knots of breeze on our quarter. Stargazer cantering down Channel. Folkestone away to leeward.

A trio of boats slips out of Dover's Western Entrance at the turn of the tide. Caroline, a Vancouver 28, Dolphin, a Bavaria 38 and Stargazer a Hallberg-Rassy 310.

Stargazer steers resolutely down the rhumb line. Whilst Dolphin and Caroline 'sail the angles.' Their foresails drawing better. But sailing a longer distance.

Dungeness slips by as the morning warms. Coffee and hot crossed buns are consumed in Stargazer's cockpit, by way of celebration.

We stand close in to the steep-to shingle spit. Hoping to shave some distance from our course. But the Lydd (Ministry of Defence Gunnery Range) guard boat shepherds us back seaward. Advising that our armed forces enjoy no Easter respite and that live firing will shortly commence.

Dolphin, despite her greater length, has dropped astern. As has the sturdy Caroline. Shorter of waterline and heavier of displacement.

Stargazer runs goose winged toward Hastings. Angling inshore after our detour. The breeze steadily building. Enabling Caroline to close to within five miles. And causing Dolphin to stand out into the Channel shipping lanes on a reach.

By the time Stargazer passes the beaches, on which William the Conqueror came ashore, we have over twenty knots at our back. We hand the genoa. Lyndsey and Graham (later tell me that they) maintain full sail on Caroline. Both of us making better than six knots against the now turned tide. Dolphin falling further behind.

The Sovereign Harbour outer entrance is a welter of white water. Whipped up by a wind which is driving directly into it. No place to pause and drop sail. Stargazer sweeps around the dogleg. Finding shelter inside the breakwaters, in which to ready for the lock. 

 

Ad Lib 7

 

Stargazer's barometer rises on a balmy Bank Holiday Monday.

With barely enough breeze to balloon a freshly hoist genoa. The waters of the Wellington Dock mirror smooth.

On the shingle beach, gleeful rowers race to launch their rapier slim craft.

 Tomorrow's forecast holds fair for Beachy Head.

Ad Lib 6

 

Golden plumage aglow, a gimlet eyed Great Crested Grebe circles, preens and dives. Biding her time, this Easter Sunday, within the shelter of Dover's harbour walls. 

Off Dungeness, a westerly gale gusts. But, for the past several days, twelve to sixteen knots of easterly breeze has been forecast on Tuesday. Fair, for a passage to Beachy Head.

Ad Lib 5

 

A shirtsleeve and sunglasses breakfast in Stargazer's cockpit. On a still spring morning.

Stealthily high cirrus creeps in. The wind freshens. Clammy billows of low cloud swallow the cliff top.

Castle keep and all.

Parting periodically

To allow the sun to blaze through. Whilst a westerly breeze whistles artlessly, from the skies, as its speed steadily rises.

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.