Finally under sail
06 April 2015 | West Mersea, River Blackwater
Ulric E2
Another sunset
Easter Monday 2015
The day started splendidly in Stangate Creek. Our anchorage was off the morbidly called Slaughterhouse Point. Elliott and I saw a seal before breakfast. Noisy, but endearing, chorus of birds and sunshine accompanied our breakfast in the cockpit. Brendan and I were in the cockpit together for most of our journey today, while Quinn and Elliott were mostly below deck. Brendan pays an enormous interest in all details of navigation. The partly submerged ammunition ship, Richard Montgomery, in the approach to the Medway was of particular interest.
The weather turned cloudy and the wind piped up to 17 knots on the nose as we were half way crossing the Thames estuary. It felt much cooler than the 8 degrees on the thermometer. We were unlucky with the tides, or decided to largely ignore them, hence our 45 Nm over ground turned into a 60 Nm slog. It was a relief to turn port across the Wallet spitway and we could hoist sail as we made our approach to the River Blackwater.
We anchored around 5pm at the Mersea Quarters which is off the island Mersea. It will be exciting to explore it. One year ago, we were sailing in the Stockholm archipelago over Easter. Two years ago we had just returned from a holiday in Tunisia and three years ago we explored the Bahamas. Elliott and I went to church on Rum Quay on Easter Sunday. That feels quite remote memory today.
It is approaching 9pm and darkness prevail around us, but it is interrupted by the village of West Mersea to our North and Bradwell nuclear power station to our South. It is a bit bumpier than last night, but the wind has dropped. Tomorrow may be a chill day!