Saturday and Sunday 1 and 2 September
This was the opportunity we had waited for to cross the North Sea. The forecast was for low winds, starting off from the North West which would allow us to sail, at least to start with, before they went into the west or south west later on. In fact, they were so low that we had to motor anyway, and the sea was still choppy from the previous day. In retrospect, we should have waited another day. So we had another crossing of bashing into head winds and a roughish sea. It wasn't as uncomfortable as the one in May, but pretty exhausting anyway. We decided to skip Lowestoft and take a slightly longer crossing to Harwich, particularly exploiting the forecast north west or west winds. In the middle of the night, the wind cooperated and we had a very nice 3 or 4 hours of sailing at a decent speed, under a full moon and starry sky. Then normal service was resumed, the wind headed us and dropped, and the engine came on again. It is surprising how much more rough it is when you are motoring rather than sailing. The tide turned against us too, and we had a long tiring, slow few hours approaching the Suffolk coast, before the sun came up, the sea calmed a bit and the tide turned allowing us a quick dash down the coast, past Harwich and into Walton backwaters where we anchored, had an early lunch and went to bed for the afternoon.
Monday 3 September
We were desperate to sail the next bit - we had motored most of the way from the IJsselmeer, and really didn't want to be a motor boat any longer. Sailed off the anchor, in very low winds and put out the drifter to sail out over Pye Sands. We were doing fine, and we're feeling very superior compared to the other boats who were motoring. Then the wind died and we started going backwards, so we had to use the engine anyway. As we approached Walton pier, the wind came back, and we had a lovely calm sail with only one tack, down the Wallet and round into the Colne. The wind was very variable in direction and we ended up goosewinged (wind directly behind and the drifter out one side with the main out the other). We turned into Pyefleet creek, last visited back at the start of our trip, and anchored, under sail, of course. It was warm and sunny, and although we are still tired from our overnight sail, today helped us recover. I made a mistake calculating the time of low water, which I'll blame on tiredness, but in the event, it didn't matter.
Tuesday 4 September
The alarm went off at 6 am, so that we could catch the tide out of the Colne and then into the Crouch, but we were both still exhausted, so turned it off and had another hour or so in bed. We had two options, either sail against the tide out of the Colne, over the Spitway (shallowish sandbank) and pick up the Crouch tide, or leave it even later and go over the really shallow Raysand channel near high water, which cuts a few miles off the trip, but means you end up with an ebbing tide for the last bit. We decided to set off, and make the decision later. In fact, the wind was quite reasonable to start with, and we headed off to the Spitway at a sensible speed. It then became very fluky, changing direction by 20 or 30 degrees, and strength so we were tacking, drifting and only occasionally going the way we wanted to. We carried on till just short of Burnham before we gave up and motored the last 3 miles.
We have sailed 2096 miles, in just over 4 months. Alshira has been superb in all respects. It has been a lovely trip, visiting super places, but there are so many more to discover!
