51°57'36.1"N 1°08'42.0"E

90 miles run

179 Miles since leaving Sandwich

27^th May 2022

The decision was taken out of our hands, and it is a right turn out of Lowestoft. Unfortunately, Normas mother has taken a turn for the worse and Norma needs to go back to Ireland to help out. The end result, we have cancelled the round Britain part of our trip and will take Spectra back to Dover where I will stay until Norma is able to re-join (no desire to sail without her). It is all a bit depressing really but what can you do?

                I must admit I was extremely nervous as we took Spectra down the river to meet our bridge opening time. Although we had been assured the gearbox was all better now it will take time before I can run the engine without nervously listening to every rattle, squeak and bang that comes out of the engine bay. All went well and Spectra behaved impeccably. The bridge opened on cue, and we motored out into the North Sea without further issue. After a last longing look North, I swung the wheel to starboard and pointed Spectra’s bows back towards Dover. Actually, the trip was rather pleasant. We soon had all white sails up and were gliding along on a smooth sea at 6 knots. 7 hours later we dropped the sails and headed upriver towards, Harwich and Shotley. The first choice of mooring was Half penny pier but with a strong wind blowing onshore and an exposed pontoon I decided that I wasn’t brave enough to give it a try. Norma then radioed Shotley marina but there was no room at the inn which left us with just the two options, anchoring or an overnight passage to Dover.

                We motored up the river Stour for about 15 minutes and then moving 50 meters out of the channel dropping anchor in 5 meters of water. It turned out to be a lovely spot, rolling countryside, a little church and a farm building was all that we could see on the northern bank. Unfortunately, the southern bank consisted of a large sprawling oil refinery, but you can’t have everything can you? A couple of beers on the aft deck as we watched the sun go down completed a lovely day on the water.

Peace and quiet on the river Stour

Next morning, we pulled the anchor up bright and early to discover thick black slimy mud coating to the chain. By the time we had encouraged the anchor to unstick itself from the bottom the decks, covers, rails and Norma all had a fine splattering of the sticky stuff.  The sail down to Dover was uneventful in the extreme. About halfway the wind died leaving us a 15 mile motor which as it turned out was a good thing as it gave the gearbox a good testing. Late afternoon saw Spectra enter Dover (again) and take up a mooring in the new marina.

                And that’s about it for this one. Two days later Norma flew out to Ireland in order to Florence Nightingale her mother and I was left behind to carry on tinkering aboard Spectra, Ah poor me.