Auntie Helen
Well-Known Member
Chellers\' first day at Brightlingsea
Well hello again folks.
Today we went for a quick motor, enjoying the fact that the boat is now only 15-20 minutes away from our home, rather than an hour in the old house/marina.
We arrived with seadog in tow to discover a slight lack of water.
We knew the mooring wasn't afloat the whole time so came down just after low tide to see what it was like. Chellers draws 83cm but you can see from the antifoul line she was settled in the Good Old Essex Mud.
Lucy Locket (dog) was shoved on board and seemed to spend some time trying to evolve her ears into wings.
Quick stop for lunch. I hasten to add that Lucy usually eats her lunch outside rather than from the table with the rest of us...
Oh goodie, after lunch we had some more water! Note the VERY tight gap to squeeze out of - our fenders all breathed in for us to make our way past that brand new boat (gulp) but we didn't touch it at all!
So now we decided to set off, reversing out of our berth and the whole way down along the pontoon (which is quite long).
This proved to be very difficult. The wind kept swinging the nose out towards the shallow area and consequently we kept finding we were reversing towards boats moored on the pontoon. Tide and wind were all pushing us the way we were attempting to go so I did a lot of the manoeuvring with tick-over forward gear.
Half way down the pontoon we tied up alongside a space for a bit of a breather.
Off we set again after a minute or two and it got even harder. At one point I'm pretty sure the starboard hull was on the mud but it came off reasonably easily. We didn't manage to go on the inside of a pole to mark the entrance to the pontoon but we had enough depth on the other side of it - phew.
It was all rather difficult and I was a bit gloomy about our chances if we wanted to leave with less water under the keel. So we decided to have a break from manoeuvring and go out towards the sea a bit.
James is very familiar with the area so he was pointing out the navigation marks and also various bits of Brightlingsea seafront that we walked along with Lucy earlier. We looked out for Flipper but didn't see him/her (gender?). We saw loads of cream-coloured boats but only one yellow one which didn't look right at all.
We got out to the Colne and then turned round to return still on the rising tide and see how we could moor.
For the return journey I decided I wanted to reverse down the pontoon. This was reversing into wind and tide which should give me a bit more control and also meant that when I left next time it would hopefully be a bit easier to control the boat going in the correct direction. We'll see.
The reversing in was dead easy, all went swimmingly although I had to have the rudder hard left to keep a straight course (presumably because of tide/wind) but we managed to get in without bumping any boats and just nudging the precautionary fender James had put on a bit of concrete pontoon that boxed in our little mooring spot.
So here's Chellers after the event, facing t'other way round and with a lot more water to float on.
Lucy Locket looks rather keen to escape the evil sea-monster and get back onto dry land. She's not that keen a seadog really.
Hope this didn't bore y'all. At least I know we should be able to escape the mooring to wend our way to Bradwell on Saturday. At high tide!
Well hello again folks.
Today we went for a quick motor, enjoying the fact that the boat is now only 15-20 minutes away from our home, rather than an hour in the old house/marina.
We arrived with seadog in tow to discover a slight lack of water.
We knew the mooring wasn't afloat the whole time so came down just after low tide to see what it was like. Chellers draws 83cm but you can see from the antifoul line she was settled in the Good Old Essex Mud.
Lucy Locket (dog) was shoved on board and seemed to spend some time trying to evolve her ears into wings.
Quick stop for lunch. I hasten to add that Lucy usually eats her lunch outside rather than from the table with the rest of us...
Oh goodie, after lunch we had some more water! Note the VERY tight gap to squeeze out of - our fenders all breathed in for us to make our way past that brand new boat (gulp) but we didn't touch it at all!
So now we decided to set off, reversing out of our berth and the whole way down along the pontoon (which is quite long).
This proved to be very difficult. The wind kept swinging the nose out towards the shallow area and consequently we kept finding we were reversing towards boats moored on the pontoon. Tide and wind were all pushing us the way we were attempting to go so I did a lot of the manoeuvring with tick-over forward gear.
Half way down the pontoon we tied up alongside a space for a bit of a breather.
Off we set again after a minute or two and it got even harder. At one point I'm pretty sure the starboard hull was on the mud but it came off reasonably easily. We didn't manage to go on the inside of a pole to mark the entrance to the pontoon but we had enough depth on the other side of it - phew.
It was all rather difficult and I was a bit gloomy about our chances if we wanted to leave with less water under the keel. So we decided to have a break from manoeuvring and go out towards the sea a bit.
James is very familiar with the area so he was pointing out the navigation marks and also various bits of Brightlingsea seafront that we walked along with Lucy earlier. We looked out for Flipper but didn't see him/her (gender?). We saw loads of cream-coloured boats but only one yellow one which didn't look right at all.
We got out to the Colne and then turned round to return still on the rising tide and see how we could moor.
For the return journey I decided I wanted to reverse down the pontoon. This was reversing into wind and tide which should give me a bit more control and also meant that when I left next time it would hopefully be a bit easier to control the boat going in the correct direction. We'll see.
The reversing in was dead easy, all went swimmingly although I had to have the rudder hard left to keep a straight course (presumably because of tide/wind) but we managed to get in without bumping any boats and just nudging the precautionary fender James had put on a bit of concrete pontoon that boxed in our little mooring spot.
So here's Chellers after the event, facing t'other way round and with a lot more water to float on.
Lucy Locket looks rather keen to escape the evil sea-monster and get back onto dry land. She's not that keen a seadog really.
Hope this didn't bore y'all. At least I know we should be able to escape the mooring to wend our way to Bradwell on Saturday. At high tide!
