We set off a little after two on Thursday morning, motoring into a light easterly. The battery had three hours of charging and my hours clock is a little closer to the new engine’s 50 hour service! Down near the Barrow, and on cue from that forecast (believed in!) the wind went south-east, sail was set. We revelled in it … the boat felt normal again.It had become a little choppy by then too but once behind the shallows covering that great mass of sand separating the Swin from the deeper Thames channels the water became smooth. The boat was in her element and we saw 7.3 knots flash up… I think we were going faster at times – just my little jib and main with first reef!

Whimbrel sailing up the Wallet on a finer day … taken from dinghy towing astern!

By the turn of the tide we were sailing through the spitway … my crew wanted to know why I called it the Swin Spitway! I don’t know the answer to that one. I got away with it by saying, “I expect northern sailors call it the Wallet Spitway…” Anyway, ‘we’ made a ‘command decision’ and we decided to continue up the Wallet… It was a grand sail too requiring the letting out of the reef in the main nd setting of the genoa – we were pushing five plus knots over the tide. Not bad for an old Finesse…

It was a good move or what: sitting on a buoy off that evocative Suffolk sailors’ port, Pin Mill, with the wind howling around the anchorage and bursts of rain (well one short and heavy one anyway) lashing around, I think it was. And now, as I write, the sun has come out!

The mate was somewhat relieved we had made our decision and was impressed with the timings too … I think she was really wishing she’d been aboard and not at work… Someone has to keep the home fires burning… (My crew had abandoned his mate as well!)

Talking of mates, my current, a pretty good one too, had asked for sugar in his tea – it was somewhere going along the edge of the Maplin sands. I wasn’t aware he took sweetners! Apparently his two daughters don’t allow it at home – so, as one of them is my God-daughter and in support of their rules … I’ve stopped the his secret sugar kick too! It means, of course, he’ll be able to enjoy a few more pints of Adnams ashore…

There is a smack/gaffers race tomorrow – Saturday – two have appeared already, but one wonders if it’ll take place: gales have been forecasted… this is also the weekend of the Thames barge passage match from Gravesend to Pin Mill. they’re robust craft so should pitch up in a long line over the evening of Saturday into Sunday. I’ll have another budding east coaster aboard by then too … my temporary mate’s partner… She’s done some dinghy sailing on the Deben and some other locations in an earlier life … but not cruiser sailing.

My lap top ran out of power … now corrected…

Cracking sail today, Saturday, chasing smacks … down the Orwell and into the Stour. The harbour was somewhat choppy. Later in Shotley Marina, and yes I do go into marinas, I watched as the Edith May ran in well ahead of the Repertor and Ardwina in the Passage Match from Gravesend.

I rang the Edith May’s intrepid skipper, Geoff Gransden, and congratulated the barge (and crew). They even had to do a ‘360’ and go back round the Shotley buoy: they’d left it on the wrong side. Tut Tut!