This year I choose the shakedown cruise and elected to go to Chatham. The logic for this was we are hoping to do some longish sails this year and I thought it would to get right into it. Plus the fact I like Chatham.
As it was the Easter weekend, the lovely ladies from the marina office came round the pontoons bearing gifts.
We started this journey with quick trip down the Orwell to stay on a mooring buoy at the end of the river. It always gives us a head start in the morning if we have an early start and it is a lovely peaceful night. We went through the lock on free flow, which is always an added bonus. Saves jumping off the boat, tying up and waiting for the water to be at the right level. Once at the bottom of the river I realised I'd not charged up my camera so there are very few photos. However here is a view from the boat, you can see why we enjoy this mooring.
Saturday dawned bright although a bit on the chilly side. We were well wrapped up for our journey.
One day I am going to take a glamorous sailing shoot of me!
There was of course no wind so we had to motor sail. I was really pleased with my passage planning as we got the tides spot on and apart from the first and last hour never did less than 6 knots and we were over 7 knots for 4 hours of the journey. From dropping the lines to mooring up in Chatham took us 8 hours and 50 minutes. I was pleased with this as this also included the time to go through the lock at Chatham. The mileage was 53.97 nautical miles. We were a little worried as we went past the Naze as there were some very poorly marked lobster pots.
Chatham is a lovely marina and plenty to do round about. As we had tickets for the Maritime Museum (when you buy your ticket they last a year), we thought we'd go there on Easter Sunday. Sadly it was an event day (Steam Punk), this meant out annual pass was not valid and would have had to pay (a discounted price) to go in. We politely declined.
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| Rascal at Chatham |
Easter Monday was time to come home. We knew we would have some night sailing because of the tides we didn't lock out of Chatham until 13.00hrs. The tide was against us in the Medway, which we knew it would be as we wanted to catch the better tides in the Thames Estuary. Once on the Estuary it was wind against tide so it was quite bouncy.
We went over the Swim Spitway before it got dark (which was planned), and darkness fell as we went up the Wallet. Again the tides were good here as we were hitting 7 knots, which was all tide as we never run the engine hard and there was no wind to sail. We also were sail slightly off the course I'd planned as we didn't want to run into the lobster pots we'd spied on the way there.
The conditions were perfect for the best display of phosphorescence we have ever seen. It was like we had two florescent lights attached to the side of the boat. However I spent less time look at the light display as I was on lobster pot look out. We did see some and I was able to alert John to turn quickly to starboard.
The log got messy and incomplete as I am unable to write in the dark and couldn't find my red light torch! So I'm not sure what time we were moored up by. But I was pleased to have hooked a mooring buoy in the dark and we were sat eating our meal by midnight. We felt the need for something hot.
After another restful night on the mooring we had a full English and headed back to the Marina. Once again we planned it well and managed to go back through the lock on freeflow.
Although it was a good weekend John has said he's choosing the destination of next year's shakedown cruise.
By the way all was well with the boat apart from gremlins with the auto pilot.
We did 121 nm over a four day period. As we had a loyalty card with MLD Marinas we had a free night there. So paid only one night, however at £41, it's not a cheap marina.
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