Tue 25 Aug, Lowestoft to Ramsgate

Woke at 0430 to find the wind had eased a little, but as with the North Sea, we discovered that the swell had a mind of it’s own. Working on the principle that the nasty bit should abate once off the shallow bits, we braved the…….things that sailors brave, and took off like a scalded cat. True, getting out of Lowestoft Harbour and around the narrow channel between the shallow bits was a tad lumpy, true enough, as soon as we arrived in deeper water the whole world settled down a bit and we settled down into our 72 mile passage, along the Suffolk and Essex coasts and across the Thames Estuary, dodging the wind farms. I don’t know and am not bothered by your opinion, dear reader, of offshore wind farms and I am not about to share ours, BUT in a peculiar way, they are actually quite beautiful.
The sunshine was wonderful, we had favourable winds and very carefully calculated use of tidal streams and we sailed all the way to Ramsgate. It was one of those sailing passages (a bit like a good golf shot) that makes you want to do it all again and makes you (temporarily perhaps) forget the bad ones.

Mike was there, video’ing our entry into Ramsgate and then meeting us on the pontoon after ‘legging it’ round from the light house’s vantage video’ing point to the marina (quite a jaunt.)

We were all quite tired, us from the voyage and Mike from public transport, so we inhaled a spaghetti Bolognaise and hit the sack.Read more