We relocated up to near Aldeburgh on the same river (the Ore) but with a different name up there (the Alde). Intention was to anchor but the horrendously strong winds were forecast to remain or get worse, so we picked up a vacant buoy tight to the weather shore (shore from which the wind was coming) where the net seemed good. It was a nice walk into town from there, but some serious mud-punting was required for our return.
Next morning I went to start the generator in order to get on with some work. We'd spent all of the previous day and night almost with the laptop and fridge on and the wind had dropped off. It moaned at me about a lack of oil so I glugged some in. Too much it turned out. And it then proceeded to seriously pump out white smoke, and not run very well. I thought I'd broken it - but after an hour of running the smoke cleared. Very forgiving generator the Honda EX650 (which I bought second hand on ebay and which looks to be at least 10 years old).
Couple of days later, after work was done, we returned to the Havergate Island anchorage, and Orford. I'd read up on the next part of our voyage and discovered that the whole area off the coast is prone to rapid changes of depths. A quote from the chart: "warning, depths can change drastically. For example, a 2004 survey discovered a drying height of 0.4m where the charted depth was 12m." So I decided to buy the latest chart folio for "Whitby to Gibralter point". The one we have was updated in 2007, the latest one was updated to Feb 2010. Big thanks to "Small Craft Deliveries" of Woodbridge, who agreed to meet us at Orford Quay and hand over the charts! (which turned out to be near on identical, doh!)
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For the last week or so I'd been getting more and more excited about the idea of replacing our inflatable dinghy with something which would row better, and had the option of being sailed. I spent way more time that I should have on ebay and boat selling sites, falling in love with lovely little wooden sailing dinghies. The 'Walker Bay 8' kept coming up and being recommended, but it lacked any kind of soul... but it ticked _all_ of the boxes (there were many: price, toughness, seaworthness, carrying capacity, rowability, sailability, re-sale ability, ease of conversion to/from sail mode, towability, size, stowability of the sailing parts and most importantly, location). I bit the bullet and haggled down the price of a 'graded' one, which we had delivered to Orford Quay.
Dinghy sailing is fun! Haha! I put on my wetsuit as it felt seriously unstable compared to our inflatable even without a mast and sail trying to blow it over. The wind was strong but I couldn't wait to try it. Ha! I could sail a dinghy! Took a little bit of practice but within minutes I was sailing laps around Isabella - brilliant. We can now enter some river, drop anchor and head off far up-river to explore; perhaps with a picnic. Very wind in the willows!
I convinced Rose to join me in "Dink" and we went for a quick pootle down river. Lunar was going crazy on Isabella, yelping annoyingly. Then she was quiet and nowhere to be seen. Then I saw a disturbance in the water behind Isabella. She'd gone in. Not sure if she jumped or fell as a result of standing right on the edge as she often does. We tacked and sailed back towards Isabella, slowly as it was up tide of us. Rose lost all fear of capsize and we both watched as Lunar tried to climb up the back of Isabella, then onto the inflatable, then Isabella again. I didn't expect it to have any effect but when we were about 200m away I started to call her and surprisingly she immediately began swimming straight towards us. I'd expected her to be in far too much of a panic. She made it a good 30m from Isabella by the time we met, and she was pulled, shivering, from the water. Stupid dog!
Going to keep the inflatable for now - managed to stow it in the cockpit locker no problem. If the new dinghy becomes a pain (we _have_ to tow it - no room on deck for it I don't think) we'll have to sell it on. Time will tell.
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After a successful impromptu mud-punting in "Dink", next up was the voyage to Lowestoft. Quite a considerable voyage.
The electronic charts on my handheld GPS ran out at Orford so we had to do all planning on paper. Voyage was 6 miles against the tide down to the Ore river mouth, then 30 miles along the coast, watching out for 3 major, shifting, sandbanks, finished off with a strong cross tide as we entered Lowestoft.
The Ore river currents are notoriously strong, and you are well advised to leave when the tide is coming up (partly because it's best to navigate shallows when the tide is rising, and partly due to large waves forming there when the tide is on the ebb). The tide was running close to 4.5 knots in places, so it felt excruciating crawling along with the engine at full revs _and_ the sails helping us and watching people 20m away on the beach ambling past us! We made it out though and had a fantastic sail all the way to Lowestoft. Massive unforecast squalls repeatedly passed behind or in front of us. We could see torrential rain and felt the edges of areas of very high winds (we saw 30 knots from time to time when the usual wind was about 12 to 15 knots). Had we been 30 minutes earlier or later we'd have been hit about 5 times by them - as it was we missed the lot! Extremely lucky! I was very pleased that I predicted the onset of the strong winds before they arrived every time - and we reefed the sails in anticipation.
So now we're in Lowestoft. Looks as though we'll be here a while as there's some north in the wind which will make the north sea unpleasant for a while.
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I can't believe it's only about 4 months since we set off. Thinking back to living on Isabella on land for a week at the beginning of the trip, it feels like a few years ago. Before we set off I was acutely aware of how my life seemed to be going quicker and quicker as I got older. Now it seems as slow as when I was a kid. I think the more 'stuff' I do and memories I lay down, the slower life passes. And 'cruising' is an excellent way to make loads of memories.
On that note I don't know how I'm going to be in Whitby for the winter. I seem to be bored of a place and ready to move on after just a couple of weeks at most. Whitby has a lot of people in it we've not seen for a while, both friends and family, so I'm sure I'll do much better than a few weeks before I feel it - and there's the wedding to organise (and attend!) - and the honeymoon... but I wonder if I'll make it to Christmas before harbour rot sets in. Will we really wait until April to set out again? I'm not entirely sure.
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Some stats:
Motored: 58 hours 37 minutes
Sailed: 78 hours 42 minutes
Anchored: 39 nights
Other: 46 nights
Marina: 47 nights
Mooring Fees: £1454
Distance: 614.2 nautical miles
BBQs: 22
Fish: 5 caught
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Some media....
First sail in the Walker Bay 8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj92-U6FXYI
Smoky Generator (in the dinghy because it makes it near silent in the cabin when running)
Moonrise at Aldburgh
Stuck on the mud - tide went out while we were ashore in Orford - Isabella in the background
Results of mud punting - unwitting passers by will think the Kraken has woken!
The beginning of a squall engulfing a fishing boat. One of the many squalls that just missed us
