Habebty
Well-Known Member
This year I decided to eschew the beaurocratic delights of “goin forrin” and decided to head north to the quintessential English seaside town of Wells-next-the-Sea. And what a fine choice it turned out to be. Now, whilst this may be a common watering hole for the northern chapter of the ECF, this represented a bit of heading into the unknown for me as a single-hander with the prospect of some mildly tricky tidal timings and a lonely bolthole-less bit of coast to follow.
After a slow and hot sail up to Lowestoft from Harwich, I was able to enjoy the world cup final in one of Lowestoft’s more gentile drinking parlours with a load of friendly (but eventually - as it turned out - disappointed) Dutch yotties.
After waiting an extra day for a favourable slant on the wind for going round the corner towards Wells an early departure for the 53nm round Norfolk saw me arrive two hours early and in an Easterly f4-5 meant a rolly anchorage in Holkham Bay until the tide rose enough to let me past the Wells Harbour PHM.
Also anchored in the bay was a largish steel river barge cum houseboat that had made the trip down from Scarborough in 18 hours also single-handed but with no autopilot and dubious sea-keeping abilities. Talking to the owner on board later, he had originally started from Glasgow! and was making his way towards the Orwell stopping off in the Broads. He had got a bit concerned about his welded seams whilst slamming through the sea on his way down - nice chap though.
I had decided to take advantage of the excellent pilotage service offered by the harbour launch and he led both barge and Habebty into harbour which despite the HMs obviously faultless local knowledge it still goes against all instinct to follow the most serpentine channel through gaps in breaking surf with an increasingly pessimistic echo sounder.
I can remember saying to myself “wouldn’t like to do that in the dark”
However, despite the scary proximity of potentially embarrassing shallows (even for an Eastcoaster) a nice pontoon berth was allocated. Thats me, behind the black and blue barge and Yachting Monthly Storm.
Now, top tip, if HM asks you “what do you draw and what keel do you have” And you say “1.4m and bilge keel” He will only hear the “bilge keel so you can take the bottom” bit, which means you will get up at 0200 to let the pontoons take the bottom as well rather than hang off your boat.
As I had neglected to bring a small stepladder with me the HM took pity and moved me to end of the pontoon where drawing 1.4m I would only just touch bottom at LW.
A good nights sleep ensued.
This is a lovely spot and the throngs of people gillying for crabs gawping at the people on boats are soon forgotten as it is just as much fun to gawp back whilst watching worried parents trying to stop offspring from falling off quay whilst crabbing. But I suspect they enjoyed the spectacle of an idiot trying to start his recently “repaired” outboard for an exploration up the creeks. If a tree had been handy I would have hit it with a branch.
One off the eternal joys of this forum is the ability to meet other forumites whilst in exotic locations, and sure enough Wild Otter conveying Mr and Mrs Jomo after a windy trip to and from Whitby rafted up alongside. Mrs Habebty drove up from Norwich for some feet up time and enjoyed a good yarn with our new neighbours - top people.
A trip on the little railway to Walsingham, a walk down to the beach at LW to marvel at the price of beach huts nowadays, a swim in the tropical azure blue see-through water. Only some of the ways to spend some lazy summer days at the seaside.
One can only have so much of a beautiful place, and after six days of having had my fill of fish and chips/Adnams/Spitfire/brown shrimp/ice cream/dressed crab, my digestive system said head back south.
After talking to Mr and Mrs Jomo, and forgetting what I had said to myself on the way in, a departure time of 0100! was decided upon. This actually proved to be a fine choice on Ian’s part to prevent muppets in bilge keel boats from parking on the mud/sand/anything else, as there would still be some rise of tide left to extricate oneself from any “difficulty”
Sure enough, after 20 seconds after casting off and about 20yds from pontoon, said muppet parked on the muddy bit opposite despite echo sounder telling me there was 1.1m under the keels (well – one of them - as it turned out! I think there is a similar Peyton cartoon on this sort of situation) After a bit of tiller waggling, engine and tide movement was soon regained.
If one is to follow ones inbound GPS track outbound, one should make sure that the track can actually be read on plotter without removing glasses, as doing this whilst also trying to spot small buoys on a dark moonless night and hold a torch and steer is a bit tricky.
Several maritime chicanes and mild bump on the sand by me saw us out past the lifeboat house and approaching the noise of that surf again (probably just as well I couldn’t see it) and out into open water.
From there on it was a lovely night-time sail into the dawn and beautiful sunrise off Cromer.
By about Bacton the wind had gone almost onto the nose so a slow motorsail to Lowestoft followed.
Next day saw a forecast of SW f3-4 promising a longish beat back to Harwich.
F3-4 myarse F5-6 SW more like
This now became a matter of personal choice as to whether to carry on and it really could have gone either way as boat was coping fine but after taking 4 hours to nearly reach Southwold I decided to wait for some…..nicer….weather and skidaddled back to Lowestoft. I can only admire the way Wild Otter soaked up the conditions.
Next day saw an actual F3-4 SSW so a longish but satisfying beat down the coast meant I arrived back on the Orwell 11 hours later. Why is it that every time I go past Orford Ness there are really weird cloud formations like a tornado is imminent?
All in all a nice way to spend 10 days and would recommend Wells for a visit, but check with HM about depths against pontoons and take your own bog roll. The Wells HM team are very helpful and the location is gorgeous especially in good weather.
As PBO would say;
Lessons Learnt
1. Eat less seafood and icecream
2. Put more sunblock on nose
3. Listen to self say “wouldn’t like to do that in the dark”
4. Learn to mend your own bloody outboard. (thanks Seamark Nunn
)
5. Buy one of those big 12v plug in spotlamps
6. Look over seawall before believing weather forecast.
After a slow and hot sail up to Lowestoft from Harwich, I was able to enjoy the world cup final in one of Lowestoft’s more gentile drinking parlours with a load of friendly (but eventually - as it turned out - disappointed) Dutch yotties.
After waiting an extra day for a favourable slant on the wind for going round the corner towards Wells an early departure for the 53nm round Norfolk saw me arrive two hours early and in an Easterly f4-5 meant a rolly anchorage in Holkham Bay until the tide rose enough to let me past the Wells Harbour PHM.
Also anchored in the bay was a largish steel river barge cum houseboat that had made the trip down from Scarborough in 18 hours also single-handed but with no autopilot and dubious sea-keeping abilities. Talking to the owner on board later, he had originally started from Glasgow! and was making his way towards the Orwell stopping off in the Broads. He had got a bit concerned about his welded seams whilst slamming through the sea on his way down - nice chap though.
I had decided to take advantage of the excellent pilotage service offered by the harbour launch and he led both barge and Habebty into harbour which despite the HMs obviously faultless local knowledge it still goes against all instinct to follow the most serpentine channel through gaps in breaking surf with an increasingly pessimistic echo sounder.
I can remember saying to myself “wouldn’t like to do that in the dark”
However, despite the scary proximity of potentially embarrassing shallows (even for an Eastcoaster) a nice pontoon berth was allocated. Thats me, behind the black and blue barge and Yachting Monthly Storm.
Now, top tip, if HM asks you “what do you draw and what keel do you have” And you say “1.4m and bilge keel” He will only hear the “bilge keel so you can take the bottom” bit, which means you will get up at 0200 to let the pontoons take the bottom as well rather than hang off your boat.
As I had neglected to bring a small stepladder with me the HM took pity and moved me to end of the pontoon where drawing 1.4m I would only just touch bottom at LW.
A good nights sleep ensued.
This is a lovely spot and the throngs of people gillying for crabs gawping at the people on boats are soon forgotten as it is just as much fun to gawp back whilst watching worried parents trying to stop offspring from falling off quay whilst crabbing. But I suspect they enjoyed the spectacle of an idiot trying to start his recently “repaired” outboard for an exploration up the creeks. If a tree had been handy I would have hit it with a branch.
One off the eternal joys of this forum is the ability to meet other forumites whilst in exotic locations, and sure enough Wild Otter conveying Mr and Mrs Jomo after a windy trip to and from Whitby rafted up alongside. Mrs Habebty drove up from Norwich for some feet up time and enjoyed a good yarn with our new neighbours - top people.
A trip on the little railway to Walsingham, a walk down to the beach at LW to marvel at the price of beach huts nowadays, a swim in the tropical azure blue see-through water. Only some of the ways to spend some lazy summer days at the seaside.
One can only have so much of a beautiful place, and after six days of having had my fill of fish and chips/Adnams/Spitfire/brown shrimp/ice cream/dressed crab, my digestive system said head back south.
After talking to Mr and Mrs Jomo, and forgetting what I had said to myself on the way in, a departure time of 0100! was decided upon. This actually proved to be a fine choice on Ian’s part to prevent muppets in bilge keel boats from parking on the mud/sand/anything else, as there would still be some rise of tide left to extricate oneself from any “difficulty”
Sure enough, after 20 seconds after casting off and about 20yds from pontoon, said muppet parked on the muddy bit opposite despite echo sounder telling me there was 1.1m under the keels (well – one of them - as it turned out! I think there is a similar Peyton cartoon on this sort of situation) After a bit of tiller waggling, engine and tide movement was soon regained.
If one is to follow ones inbound GPS track outbound, one should make sure that the track can actually be read on plotter without removing glasses, as doing this whilst also trying to spot small buoys on a dark moonless night and hold a torch and steer is a bit tricky.
Several maritime chicanes and mild bump on the sand by me saw us out past the lifeboat house and approaching the noise of that surf again (probably just as well I couldn’t see it) and out into open water.
From there on it was a lovely night-time sail into the dawn and beautiful sunrise off Cromer.
By about Bacton the wind had gone almost onto the nose so a slow motorsail to Lowestoft followed.
Next day saw a forecast of SW f3-4 promising a longish beat back to Harwich.
F3-4 myarse F5-6 SW more like
This now became a matter of personal choice as to whether to carry on and it really could have gone either way as boat was coping fine but after taking 4 hours to nearly reach Southwold I decided to wait for some…..nicer….weather and skidaddled back to Lowestoft. I can only admire the way Wild Otter soaked up the conditions.
Next day saw an actual F3-4 SSW so a longish but satisfying beat down the coast meant I arrived back on the Orwell 11 hours later. Why is it that every time I go past Orford Ness there are really weird cloud formations like a tornado is imminent?
All in all a nice way to spend 10 days and would recommend Wells for a visit, but check with HM about depths against pontoons and take your own bog roll. The Wells HM team are very helpful and the location is gorgeous especially in good weather.
As PBO would say;
Lessons Learnt
1. Eat less seafood and icecream
2. Put more sunblock on nose
3. Listen to self say “wouldn’t like to do that in the dark”
4. Learn to mend your own bloody outboard. (thanks Seamark Nunn
)5. Buy one of those big 12v plug in spotlamps
6. Look over seawall before believing weather forecast.
).
