Short and Sweet - Monday 17th

 

If we only do sensible days of sailing, ambitious enough to be adventurous but short enough to only involve one tide or one tide and a bit, then it is likely to take us three months to get round the UK and we only really want to take two months. However, we are not really up for a sequence of epic long days so this relatively short hop from Ramsgate to a port just around the corner was intended to be a kind of rest day. The great thing was to leave Ramsgate with the tide in our favour and have some great sailing with the wind on our beam and then be moored in the marina and shopping by lunchtime in Dover for some essentials, in the knowledge that there is a great chandlery that is bound to have the required pop rivets, split pins, inshore flare pack and rope. We were soon approaching Dover but learned to our dismay that there was ‘no space available’ in the tidal harbour and it all sounded a bit too permanent so on a whim we pushed on to Folkstone. It is 17th May 2021.

First glimpse of the white cliffs of Dover....


Passing Dover is a bit of a game - dodging fast moving ferries.


The Folkstone harbour master, Lorraine, was very apologetic but said that due to work in progress we could not have a berth. Our short day was turning into an unplanned epic. However, Lorraine came good and pointed us to a contact at the Motor Boat and Yacht Club and we were directed to take anchor in the outer harbour, no charge. With a short pause for a coffee on the sea wall to wait for the tide we were soon anchored and hitting the town. I must apologise to any avid blog readers at this point because despite the short day I was somewhat distracted by the attractions of Folkstone, primarily in the form of a restaurant for lunch followed by the Anchor Pub overlooking the harbour for early evening meal. After descending a long rusty ladder with the lower rungs covered in seaweed and then rowing the inflatable dinghy back to the boat I was ready for bed rather than for blog writing. Anyway, the drying harbour with no visitor moorings certainly did not provide wifi.

 

Waiting on the sea wall for the tide to come in and allow us in to the harbour
 



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