Pic: Looking towards Burnham-On-Crouch from our mooring buoy

A week last Friday we left our anchorage at Brandy Hole and moved down the river to Burnham-On-Crouch. We had planned to anchor just north of the town, but seeing lots of empty mooring buoys, decided to pick one up for the shorter dinghy ride ashore. We only intended to be there a couple of days and at a fiver a night it wouldn't break our budgets.

It was the May Day bank holiday, warm and sunny with light winds and we enjoyed a few days walking around the marshes and taking advantage of the many pubs. We got the last of the before-we-can-go-sailing jobs done - new lazy jacks, finished off storing everything and planning the next few legs.

But the weather will not let us go. Forecasts a few days out look promising, then the next day it's all changed and gales are back again. The river is quite chopped up making it bouncy, wet and possibly a bit dangerous to get ashore in our little dinghy. A bit uncomfortable aboard at times too, lucky we have the fully enclosed cockpit to sit in which when the sun is out is quite pleasant. We have had a couple of dashes ashore for food and water and the Boatyard brought out a spare part for the fridge we had delivered to them.

We do now have a cold fridge again! We suspected gas had been lost when a valve had been accidentally knocked and the fridge was struggling to get below the high teens in centigrade. After lots of research and a check with our fridge manufacturer, we decided to try to do a gas refil ourselves as mobile fridge servicers are few and far away. Using a refil for car air con bought from Halfords we made our first attempt only to find the car refil valve was a different size to our fridge valve. Result was more lost gas and even higher temps! Hence the spare part, which turned out not to be perfect but got the job done and the fridge is working properly again.

Today we used our washing machine for our first laundry load afloat - using our petrol genny (named Igor) to provide the power which used a cupful of petrol for the hour long washing program. Proper luxury item! Although the wash did use more water than the manual says it should have, but that may be down to a wonky water meter.

The wind is currently gusting up to 40kt, more than forecast. Our first leg is planned to get us to Dover, a 65nm trip. Having not sailed in 18 months we're hanging on for something definitely calmer. However fed up I may be of waiting, I'd rather be here than battling through big seas. But, being quite an active person, the last week has been a real lesson in patience. Weather sort yourself out please!