A new day, another departure. Finally quit Brighton at 10 to catch the tide down the coast. I had thought we might only get as far as Eastbourne, but the wind turned N and we got all the way to an anchorage off Rye with only a tiny engine boost tp get us past a dead spot off Fairlight. We even managed to catch 4 mackerel for tea :-)

We were visited by the Lydd Range Safety Boat just before we anchored, who were very friendly and said they'd be starting up at 0830 and we should follow a route outside the range (which is marked on the chart) on our way out. We anchored in about 7m just outside the range. Not quite in the 1mmN of the fairway buoy suggested by the Almanac, but close enough. Spent a secure night (lovely, lovely Rocna) - but there is some swell, so not perfect. Another round of planning for me before bed. A chore, but what do you do? I suppose a lot of folks do a lot in advance - ideally in quiet moments at work ;-) I have just been too busy to do more than get myself a general route strategy and do the passages day by day.

I favoured going up the East Coast to Harwich or Lowestoft over going up the French/Belgian/Southern Dutch Coasts because although a longer crossing you aren't going across the mouths of the major shipping ports. Just a hop across the DWZ. Also with the NE wind tendencies, ifwe can just battle north we'd get a better angle - the continental coastal route would have it on the nose if it kept up like that. I had had my moments ion Brighton thinking the wind was going to be NE all Summer and we'd have to change plans and go down the West country/France instead - but that was just late night tired pessimism, so I planned us a course for Dover...