Sailing Lacerta around the UK: The muddy waters of Essex!

After our time at anchor at Pin Mill we upped anchor (with some difficulty as the cable had wound its way round an old, muddy, mooring anchor), and made our way to Suffolk Yacht Harbour for diesel and to collect our box of Aloe Vera products which had been waiting at Parker and Kay sailmakers. While Lacerta was measured up for new sails we grabbed the opportunity to have a shower and to buy the chart of the Thames Estuary which we missed out of our portfolio. The marina didn't charge us for the few hours stay which made up a bit for the most expensive diesel we have bought for some time!

most of our worldly goods unloading at Felixstowe.

Mega Maersk Line container ship.

At lunchtime we headed out into the Orwell bound for Walton Backwaters, which David, as an Arthur Ransome reader in his youth, wanted to visit as the setting for 'Secret Water'. We made our way down the shallow entrance channel, missed the entrance to Hamford Water and had to backtrack due to David being distracted by the lifeboat coming in, and were anchored in Hamford Water by late afternoon. The place was a bit of a disappointment, very low lying ground behind sea walls and no good places to land. The sun, which had been out for most of the day, disappeared behind clouds which ruled out evening drinks in the cockpit.

The sun reappeared for sunset!

The forecast had been for light winds and sunshine the following day but a nasty little front butted in, now promising heavy rain and clouds with a strong West wind. We abandoned our plans for exploring in the dinghy and opted instead to sail round to the Blackwater.

Kitted out for another wet, chilly, sail.

The day turned out exactly as forecast. We left Hamford Water, with another muddy anchor, in drizzle, which turned to heavy rain as we rounded the Pye End buoy and headed South West with a strong tide under us. We were soon down to 2 reefs in the main and a reefed genoa. Although it was pretty lumpy with wind against tide it was actually quite a good sail, in 4 hours we were at the mouth of the Blackwater, wet but happy! We decided to sail up the River Colne and anchor in Pyfleet Creek, behind Mersea Island. All went to plan until we got into the creek when, after exploring most of the available space, we couldn't find enough depth of water to keep us afloat at low tide (we are just after spring tides). We ended up anchoring off the steep shingle beach at Mersea Stone Point at the Eastern extremity of Mersea Island, which was actually quite a nice anchorage.

The ferry arrives at Stone Point.

Transport back to Lacerta.

This morning (Wednesday) the sun came out, allowing us to dry off all yesterday's wet kit. Being close to the beach we only had a short row ashore so we beached the dinghy and took the ferry across to Brightlingsea, another place last visited in our E boat days in the 80's. A bit of shopping, a Iwalk around the boating lake wher some fantastic radio controlled model Thames barges were sailing, lunch at the Colne Yacht Club and an ice cream saw us ready for another short passage, West up the Blackwater, past the anchored Radio Caroline, to a mooring off Marconi Sailing Club, which we had visited a couple of times when Tideway sailing. The tide was running strongly and it was a long way to the club so we opted to stay aboard but we are going down to Bradwell Marina tomorrow to meet Sue and Nick Hillman, both Marconi members and ex Tideway sailors for another reminiscing session!

Radio controlled Thames barge model.