A seal is peering at us as we poke our heads through the hatch, but sadly doesn’t hang around long enough for us to get cameras etc. The river is glassy and we disturb the early morning peace as we putter on the first of the ebb towards the cranes of Felixstowe and the Orwell.

As East Coast virgins we do exactly as the pilot says, following the suggested track and counting buoys. We are slightly disconcerted as first the ferry bound for Hook of Holland and then a coaster bear down on us…

…but they bear away down the channel and we are left again to gaze up at what a rough count suggests is over 3000 containers stored above decks on a ship.

Once clear of the docks however, it seems that everyone else is rather more relaxed and we get into the swing of motor-sailing along a very pretty river using buoys as a rough guide and the depth sounder carefully.

Under the vast Orwell bridge and the Ipswich docks look rather forlorn compared to the efficient modernity of Felixstowe.

We get plenty of time to consider them however as we wait to lock through into the Wet Dock. Another seal greets us to Ipswich, the grateful recipient presumably of an abundance of fish thriving on the assorted detritus from a few hundred boats…

We meet our crew (aka wives) from the train and are forced into some cocktails ‘while the rain passes’. Then it is off back down the river to find an anchorage for the night. Off the royal Harwich club we find ourselves in the middle of a flotilla of boats all flying flags and bunting in honour of the Queen’s 90^th. With a republican and assorted monarchists on board we are respectful without dipping the ensign and have a pleasant half hour musing on whether the Brexiteers who are concerned about the EU’s ‘democratic deficit’ are also in favour of a hereditary head of state.

We head off west at Harwich along the Stour and are accompanied by some (presumably more fastidious) seals. The anchorage at Erwarten Ness promises a pleasant country walk to the village and a pub. Mistake number one is when we fail to top up the outboard with petrol, necessitating a reasonably strenuous paddle against a rapid ebb the instant we let go of the boat. It is also starting to drizzle.

Mistake number two becomes apparent after a wet walk, as it would seem that we should have googled the pub first. It closed around 5 years ago and is clearly a private home despite having a sign to the car park and the original pub sign outside. Still, we have plenty of beer on board. With the tide now firmly out, the clean sandy landing earlier has turned into a very muddy slide to get the tender back into the water.

The rest of the evening is spent putting the world to rights…sadly the world outside Erwarton isn’t listening.

 

Heydays is still waiting for full size water tanks to be fitted so the grand circumnavigation can’t start just yet, but she is just asking to be taken out on the water and to feel a decent breeze in a full sail again. So this is our mini tour for now, of the Essex and Suffolk coast and rivers and who knows…maybe we will properly start for Scotland in Early August.

As always we are trying to fit too much in to our lives. John is up in Tollesbury on Thursday evening around 8pm and is still up when I arrive at 1am, but sadly we need to get over the marina sill around 4! A very short sleep is rudely shattered at 3-30 and we cling to the last vestiges of warmth in our duvets for just a few more minutes.

There is already some light in the sky as we slip as quietly as possible from our birth accompanied by the early waders on the marsh… and the hacking cough from our friend the builder in the boat next door. He’s known only to us as Boson’s (the dog) owner and he also needs to be up at 4.

It’s difficult to describe this trip down the creek without lapsing in to so many clichés so I’ll let the pictures do the talking. No matter how often you do this, the gradual lightening in the sky in the East and then the actual moment of sunrise over Mersea, lifts the spirits like few other moments. Both of us are wishing that our wives were here to witness the moment, but both of us also realising that they would probably still be tucked up making zzs and waiting for their first coffee of the day.

 

We motor out past the Nass leaving the Blackwater behind and head out into the Wallet Spit-way. The wind turbines on the Gunfleet sands are turning very lazily and make an interesting juxtaposition with the old Bradwell power stations now being decommissioned (over 10 years). As we start to turn North the breeze eases slightly and we turn off the “iron topsail” (as the old oyster smack skippers probably never said). Heydays is finally sailing free for the first time this summer and we sit back and bask in a weak summer sun with water chuckling past the only sound this early in the morning.

Soon Walton-on-the-Naze pier is off the beam and it is time to start to look for the very narrow and inscrutable channel into the backwaters. The pilot books are full of dire warnings about shifting sand banks with the consistency of concrete, so it is with just a little apprehension that we put the motor on once more and head for a seemingly impenetrable coastline. We have our paper chart, our pilot book, our main plotter and a tablet to guide us in – no chances will be taken this time. With a depth of 1.6m and a whole 30cm (1 foot in old money) we scrape over the bar and into the untold joy of 3m of water. The east coast really does have a completely different understanding of “deep water”.

By 10.30 we have anchored with half a dozen other boats in Hanford water – part of the Walton Backwaters and have reunited ourselves with our pillows for ‘forty winks’! We spend a happy afternoon playing with a few charts and bits of rope and wood as (some) sailors are wont to do. A take on a Portuguese Caldeirada finishes off the evening.

The new water tanks which have been fitted simply don’t work. Well, the water goes in OK but sadly doesn’t come out. We’ll spare the pneumatic and hydrostatic Physics lesson but in essence new tanks won’t be available until end of June. We clearly are not getting anywhere near our schedule of Scotland for August. The deep depression currently over the North sea is matched by us as the sailing season slips by. However…we can keep enough water on board for day sails and the occasional (showerless) overnight, so will do some exploring of the Essex and Suffolk rivers in the next couple of weeks.

This blog was supposed to be about a sailing trip with friends and good company, so apologies to those of you following our tale of woe. Hopefully we’ll post some pictures of East coast mud while we look forward to August.

It finally looks like we will be on the water this week. A catalogue of unfortunate events at the marina including staff illness and a fire in the offices has put back our plans, but all the major work now complete and Heydays is beginning to look like a boat again. Keels on and bolted in, antifoul done, new electric windlass installed and we have even laid the trunking ready for a heater next autumn before we face the cold Scottish nights. We are sincerely hoping that with new wiring in place and trunking done, we have said goodbye to glass fibre rash up our arms as we try to get access to places where the builders clearly thought otherwise. If I was a boat-builder….!

Routine checks around the engine have thrown up a couple of loose jubilee clips including one which had failed and a badly rounded bleed screw on the high pressure pump. We are glad we spotted these now instead of in the dark in a Force 7 approaching land… Also spotted was a VHF aerial connection at the top of the mast hanging on by a thread.

We will be on the boat (on the water!) on Saturday 28th May (although we have work to do anyone turning up will have a warm welcome and possibly something a little stronger) and hope to have a shakedown sail with the early tide on Sunday. Surely nothing else can go wrong? The plan is to explore the Essex and Suffolk rivers with Yee Tak and Chris for a few days, while gradually heading North. Lowestoft by Sunday 5th June would be good before the push up to Scotland. With reasonable luck with the weather we are aiming for Inverness (or thereabouts) by around 16/17 June. Hopefully we will do this in a series of day sails, although a fair wind may encourage some longer hops. We will endeavour to keep this reasonably up to date and add some pictures along the way in case friends are a) interested and b) would like to join for a leg or two.

Still ashore and progress is slower than we had hoped. However, we have managed to tick off most of the big jobs…as well as adding some more.

Heydays is looking good (despite not having a full complement of keels) and we have even antifouled most of her. We seem to have spent the winter tracing wires and cables in her nether regions but now have instruments where we want them together with plenty of charging sockets.

New seacock fitted should ensure slightly less problematic visits to the heads with attendant instructions to visitors reminiscent of some Mediterranean hotels.

Best of all is an electric windlass which we hope will change the way a crew of 60ish year olds can cruise.

We are currently ashore back in Tollesbury Marina and hoping to be back on the water by the end of the month. The list of jobs still to be completed is slightly daunting…

• renew 16 keel bolts and plates…fortunately the wonderful team at the marina is doing this. We’ll write the background another time, but it involved a sandbank in the Thames estuary!
• rewire and re-site instruments…this ought to have been easy but involved an unseen 240V shock along the way…won’t happen again now.
• new gas hose, new navtex aerial (not looking forward to that), heads outlet sea-cock (nor that one!)
• full engine service and trial bleed (to practice before having to do it in a F7)
• antifoul…why did we buy such a big boat? But at least we can sit up underneath.
• …and 1001 other things.

Welcome to Heydays’ blog which hopefully will take us on adventures as we expand our sailing horizons. We will try to share the highs and lows and hope that friends will share some of them with us.

If you want to read some of the stories from our first year (before the genesis of this blog) we’ll write stuff as it occurs to us in the FIRST YEAR WITH HEYDAYS pages…