We've had a ball!Friday evening everyone gathered dowm at Morgana, and by 17h30 we had a full complement.... so we did the only honourable thing, and after chewing the fat for a while, we went to the pub!To be precise, we went to the Bristol Arms, which yet again excelled itself as a fine venue for a bite to eat.A great meal, with enormous portions of more than acceptable quality for a very reasonable price.... mixed in with a grand pint of Adnams (or two), a lovely whisky (or two), and a great musician, with a real sense of humour made for a brilliant evening.We eventually swayed our way back to Morgana, swapping text messages with the girls querying their sobriety, and drank a little more... several bottles of red and a good few snifters of an excellent Irish whiskey.... 02h00, and the crew all made their excuses and went to bed...The following morning was pretty relaxed..... we'd decided that the early morning tidal entry for the Ore/Alde (our chosen destination) was just a 'little' too early at around 08h00, so we'd have a mooch around at sea, and aim for the afternoon opportunity.... any time after 15h00 from my calculations (more on this later)...So after a decent fry up (spotting a trend here?), we left at about 10h00, and sailed off up the coast....Well, the weather was just glorious.... warm, indeed hot, and the wind across the beam at initially just 8kts, but eventually building to 17kts....We soon passed the Deben, and as we were going to way too early for the Ore/Alde entrance, we decided to head out to sea.... hard on the wind, and with 15kts true, we were making 7kts through the water.... it was T shirt weather.... unbelievabley good... the boat was flying, everyone loving the sail.... Full Circle fell asleep on the foredeck..... it was so nice that we were regretting not bringing our passports, as we could have quite happily just carried straight on towards Oostende or Nieuwpoort or somewhere similar.... but it wasn't to be....By 13h30, we tacked around, and headed back to the entrance....Timings wise, it looked OK, so we went for the entrance... past the safe water mark, and to the red can.... we set course for the green, and it started to shallow off quite dramatically.... I called the depth under the keel out loud....1.1m...... 1.0m..... 0.8m..... 0.7m.... by the time I'd called 0.4m everyone was looking distinctly nervous.... we still had the main up, dead downwind.... so if we hit it was going to be a good one, and we'd be well pushed on.... so the main came down... and we crept as slowly as we could.... and heaved a sigh of relief as we finally cleared the green and the depth started to improve.... it went down to 0.3m under the keel... far to close for my liking... OK on a large open piece of water, but not sensible in a river entrance where tides can run at up to 5kts....A drains up later that evening revealed a major flaw in my calculations for the time of LW.... we'd just entered the Ore/Alde in a fin keeler drawing 1.75m bang on Low Water.... phew..... moral... don't do the calcs when pissed!Anyway.... with no harm done, we crept up the river past some lovely looking anchorages.... ideal for a complete 'get away from the world' type of experience... and cariied on up to Orford where we grabbed a visitors buoy...We proceeded to cook a great suasage casserole with mash, which was consumed with gusto, and then went ashore for a drink... Michael sadly had to depart at this stage due to babysitting challenges, and the remainder of went to the Jolly Sailor.... where we found Micahel propping up the bar waiting for his taxi!Several pints of Adnams finest later we even managed to get into the tender without getting wet, and quickly returned to the boat.... Orford is a delight.... it is very quaint, and has a real 'sailing' feel about it... we did nearly manage to wipe out a couple of guys night fishing from the quay on the way... or at least their fishing gear... but narrowly avoided it in the end...Another late start.... we'd done the calcs sober this time... and we could leave any tine after about 09h00 through to midday..... so a gentle start... another monster breakfast, clearing up all the bacon and sausages, and then about 10h00 we slipped the lines off the morring buoy....I decided to let the boat drift back from the mooring on the tide a little to avoid the pick up line... and as we got about 15ft from the bouy, engaged forward gear, and the boat promptly did a 90 degree turn to port...... umhh.... this didn't feel right.... so I grabbed the wheel to swing it over.... there was a strange graunching noise and it went completely slack, and then locked itself solid...... Oh Shit!.... the steering had just failed.....We had 2 kts of tide slinging us back up the river.....I engaged reverse and Morgana did a graceful turn and stuck her stern into the tide.....I immediately asked Chris to go remove the retaining pin from the anchor while I did my best to keep her off the bank with alternative blasts of reverse and forwards..... somehow or other we ended up just uptide of the mooring we'd just left, and by very gentle throttle application we managed to drift down on it, which thankfully Jim and Chris managed to grab first time.... phew... at least we were secure....I opened up the access hatch to the rudder post, and it was quite obvious what had happened.... the admittedly slight loose steering cable had jumped off the quadrant.... so we had no steering at all.....Just 10mins with a pair of spanners had it fixed.... drama over, but crikey, it was a bit of a heart stopper!So on the second attempt we left the river... this time seeing no less than 1.1m under the keel (although I suspect more water was available slightly to the right of our final track), and with the wind coming directly along the coast had a beat back towards Harwich.It was a bit windier than the previous day, although still quite warm, but the cloud just taking the edge off.... but we set the sails, and started to tack our way up the coast..... with the tide against us we were fighting a loosing battle, and after standing out a fair way to sea twice we were only just a mile from our starting point... so rolled up the genny and motor sailed back to Harwich seeing the wind rise to about 20kts....We were soon locked in... and with a bit of tidying up, left by 16h00....What a truly grand weekend..... excellent company.... excellent food... laughter the whole way.... and to really cap it off, some of the best sailing of the season so far.What more could anyone want?
Miles logged 42nm
Miles this season 1,027nm
Miles since this blog started 2,824nm
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