Time and Tide

 We will never really know if our sail plan could have worked, or would have worked a bit better, but clearly these long days do need some thinking through. It is 18th May 2021. We left on a falling tide at 6am and then enjoyed the assistance of the ebb to round Dungeness Head in strengthening winds. We soon passed Rye, an ancient tiny river port and available as a Plan B berth in case of problems. So far on schedule in line with our sail plan, but at 11.30 we came to a halt. The tide was turning but should not have been insurmountable. However, the forecast winds of 10mph gusting 16 turned into 20mph gusting 26 and right on the nose from WSW and churning up some sizeable waves and in collusion with the tidal flow. We had some very exciting sailing, right on the edge of the wind and tricky sea conditions and flying along at 6 knots but unfortunately not in the direction of our intended destination of Eastbourne. We spent four hours sailing our socks off and gained a psychologically damaging 3 miles of progress towards our planned berth in the fancy Sovereign Marina. To be fair we took in turns to sail one hour on one hour off and took the opportunity to have a snooze below decks.

The day begins as forecast - a long but gentle cruise in light winds but after Dungeness becomes more exciting but prolonged...

  

As the tidal flow eventually started to diminish, we continued to beat against the wind and started at last to make some slow but sure progress. The next ten miles of progress in the right direction involved hectic fast sailing tacking out to sea and back but took two and a half hours. Now we were getting close to our destination and dropped sails to motor the last three miles into the outer harbour of the fancy modern marina and through a lock into an oasis of consumerism. We were moored to a pontoon by 8pm and by making a dash we managed to eat a welcome meal accompanied by extraordinarily expensive bottles of very cold American IPA in chilled glasses at the local Thai restaurant.

Hanging on... and finally reaching the haven of Eastbourne Sovereign Marina...


  



We have planned for a day off and while Mark tries to get a jab I will consider registering for an online course in passage planning and doing some laundry. I am a mountaineer really, rather than a sailor, and I am hopefully on a steep learning curve with this sailing thing. I was amazed at the trust Mark demonstrated as he slept like a baby for an hour at a time whilst I fiddled with the tiller and wondered which rope to pull on. Later he admitted to merely snoozing nervously on his first attempt, but later, when rather more exhausted, he did manage to doze off properly. Anyway, we made it in the end. I rather regret not visiting Rye as the Pilot made it sound inconvenient but such a fantastic contrast to the Barratt Home wonderland we have chosen to stop at.

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