Hunson
New member
Wot A Weekend.
A tale of new experiences, revelations, chips and curry take away.
The Start: Friday
Sneaked away early from work, gave Clive a quick call to let him know my eta, a quick request to pick up a pint on the way and I was off.
Arrived and unloaded my car of bag and bribe for the skipper and walked down to the jetty where SIRENIA was alongside. Clive popped up just as I was approaching and welcomed me onboard.
A quick run through of the functions of the boat and we were ready to leave. One of the many daunting things that I had not looked forward to was the Sea Toilet, all I have seen on the Forum and read always states, You Block/Break It You Fix It. But with a careful explanation from Clive these demons were laid to rest.
We just had to a little dinghy transportation from a mooring near the jetty back to Clive’s and we were off toward the open sea with the donkey gently kicking below.
After about what seemed like 5 – 10 minutes it may have been longer or shorter, Clive handed over the helm to me. This was fine; we were still in the river and under power, things that I had done before.
Though the wind was hardly wafting, I did not expect the next thing, which was that I was still at the helm as we made our way out the Deben. A notoriously difficult entrance, and had I felt unsure I was close enough to the beach to have been able to jump ashore and kept my feet dry. But with a few hand gestures (all directional) from Clive we made the turns and headed out toward the channel mark, then turning south toward Harwich.
Once clear of the Deben channel marks we had a little more wind so up went the sails and the donkey was given a rest. We made a good gentle passage down toward the Harwich entrance, and as we made it round Landguard the choice was to continue to the Backwaters, Stour or Orwell.
As the sun was setting the choice of the Orwell was made as we were sailing past the docks the sun set more and the wind dropped again, the sails were stowed and donkey was woken once more.
This was my first dusk passage time and with a clear sky and orange glow beyond Shotley we chugged along with shore side lights giving some indication as to what kind of properties or cranes we were passing.
Though the sun set very quickly we still had a lot of light from the half moon and the mirror reflection of the water as we made for our destination of Pin Mill. I was impressed with the clarity at which I could see whilst out in the middle channel, but as it got darker the banks became more ominous and dark.
We passed few vessels in either direction until we got around near Pin Mill when one of the Commercial vessels was making his way down river. It was like an ethereal UFO quickly and quietly approaching, before you could make out the giant steel hull and superstructure against the dark background and the fading light on the water.
It was quiet dark now and we could just make out the Buoy shadows against the water. Clive brought out the Spotlight and we pegged a couple of Buoys which may have been possibilities for mooring but whose shackles looked a bit old and tired. We journeyed a little further before spotting a Buoy that had a pick up attached with a good rope strop. We did a quick 360 reccy around the Buoy to ensure that all looked fine and I went forward with boat hook to pick up and make us off for the night.
After clearing away the topsides we made our way below about 19:45 for dinner. Now for those that don’t know SIRENIA has a two gas burners, grill and oven. On Playboys we just have the two gas burners and grill. Clive said fancy some chips, to which I thought, oh ok, that would be nice some oven chips to go with my corned beef hash.
What took me but total surprise was the when Clive got out the potatoes and started chopping up for chips. We weren’t going to be having oven chips; we were damn well going to be having homemade deep fat fried chips. Well I was like a kid who had been told he could have 10 pence to go and buy penny sweets.
I knew that when I got home I would have to tell Lou (the better half) about this and we would have to kit ourselves out with this equipment.
We settled down and ate drank and talked shop and boat before clearing away and hitting the sack. It had been a long day and was now 22:30.
The Middle: Saturday
Sleeping whilst tied to a mooring Buoy was another first in my short sailing history, and a good night was had. Only broken by what sounded like an invasion of 3 or 4 waves of geese flying by. Dozing for probably another hour or so before hearing other sounds of life, I poked my head out the door at the invitation of Tea or Coffee. It was about 07:00, dressed, Tea’d and ready for breakfast we planned out what we would do today.
Winds were light after we had cleared away after breakfast and so we decided that we would storm Ipswich docks and see what we could plunder. We slipped our mooring and made our way stealthily up river to Ipswich.
Whilst our approach to the docks went unnoticed on approaching the lock gates we saw that we had been sussed and that a ferocious grey funnel vessel was preparing to leave the lock and defend the dockyards from two marauding raiders.
Fearing for life and limb we turned tail and ran back for the entrance of the river and surely the ability to lose ourselves in the melee of all the other vessels. We had a good lead on the vessel, but we could see that it was gaining and that the end may come sooner than we had hoped.
As they passed and made to cross our bow and cut off our escape, Clive stood steadfast and continued on. Seeing that we were not about to come to. And that we were at ramming speed ready to board and claim our prize, the Grey Funnel called Raider decided that they would leave to fight another day with bigger fish. We sat back and continued out way back toward the confluence of the Stour and Orwell.
On approaching the Felixstowe docks and Shotley we chose to head up the Stour. A nice empty stretch of river with not much traffic and studied the construction platforms that we moored up, well more like jacked up as they were the jack up crane platforms for the wind farm.
We continued passed for a little while whilst deciding that though a nice quiet rive, there didn’t appear much to be up here. So we picked a spot on the port side of the river across from the Royal Hospital School to drop the hook and have lunch. This was another new experience, dropping the hook and getting it to dig in. It appeared to drag for a moment and then we appeared to have made fast. We waited a few moments whilst the chain settled on the river bed and we settled forward slightly.
Once happy that we weren’t going anywhere we settled down to a nice spot of lunch and watched the world go by, waiting to see if the wind would pick up.
A tale of new experiences, revelations, chips and curry take away.
The Start: Friday
Sneaked away early from work, gave Clive a quick call to let him know my eta, a quick request to pick up a pint on the way and I was off.
Arrived and unloaded my car of bag and bribe for the skipper and walked down to the jetty where SIRENIA was alongside. Clive popped up just as I was approaching and welcomed me onboard.
A quick run through of the functions of the boat and we were ready to leave. One of the many daunting things that I had not looked forward to was the Sea Toilet, all I have seen on the Forum and read always states, You Block/Break It You Fix It. But with a careful explanation from Clive these demons were laid to rest.
We just had to a little dinghy transportation from a mooring near the jetty back to Clive’s and we were off toward the open sea with the donkey gently kicking below.
After about what seemed like 5 – 10 minutes it may have been longer or shorter, Clive handed over the helm to me. This was fine; we were still in the river and under power, things that I had done before.
Though the wind was hardly wafting, I did not expect the next thing, which was that I was still at the helm as we made our way out the Deben. A notoriously difficult entrance, and had I felt unsure I was close enough to the beach to have been able to jump ashore and kept my feet dry. But with a few hand gestures (all directional) from Clive we made the turns and headed out toward the channel mark, then turning south toward Harwich.
Once clear of the Deben channel marks we had a little more wind so up went the sails and the donkey was given a rest. We made a good gentle passage down toward the Harwich entrance, and as we made it round Landguard the choice was to continue to the Backwaters, Stour or Orwell.
As the sun was setting the choice of the Orwell was made as we were sailing past the docks the sun set more and the wind dropped again, the sails were stowed and donkey was woken once more.
This was my first dusk passage time and with a clear sky and orange glow beyond Shotley we chugged along with shore side lights giving some indication as to what kind of properties or cranes we were passing.
Though the sun set very quickly we still had a lot of light from the half moon and the mirror reflection of the water as we made for our destination of Pin Mill. I was impressed with the clarity at which I could see whilst out in the middle channel, but as it got darker the banks became more ominous and dark.
We passed few vessels in either direction until we got around near Pin Mill when one of the Commercial vessels was making his way down river. It was like an ethereal UFO quickly and quietly approaching, before you could make out the giant steel hull and superstructure against the dark background and the fading light on the water.
It was quiet dark now and we could just make out the Buoy shadows against the water. Clive brought out the Spotlight and we pegged a couple of Buoys which may have been possibilities for mooring but whose shackles looked a bit old and tired. We journeyed a little further before spotting a Buoy that had a pick up attached with a good rope strop. We did a quick 360 reccy around the Buoy to ensure that all looked fine and I went forward with boat hook to pick up and make us off for the night.
After clearing away the topsides we made our way below about 19:45 for dinner. Now for those that don’t know SIRENIA has a two gas burners, grill and oven. On Playboys we just have the two gas burners and grill. Clive said fancy some chips, to which I thought, oh ok, that would be nice some oven chips to go with my corned beef hash.
What took me but total surprise was the when Clive got out the potatoes and started chopping up for chips. We weren’t going to be having oven chips; we were damn well going to be having homemade deep fat fried chips. Well I was like a kid who had been told he could have 10 pence to go and buy penny sweets.
I knew that when I got home I would have to tell Lou (the better half) about this and we would have to kit ourselves out with this equipment.
We settled down and ate drank and talked shop and boat before clearing away and hitting the sack. It had been a long day and was now 22:30.
The Middle: Saturday
Sleeping whilst tied to a mooring Buoy was another first in my short sailing history, and a good night was had. Only broken by what sounded like an invasion of 3 or 4 waves of geese flying by. Dozing for probably another hour or so before hearing other sounds of life, I poked my head out the door at the invitation of Tea or Coffee. It was about 07:00, dressed, Tea’d and ready for breakfast we planned out what we would do today.
Winds were light after we had cleared away after breakfast and so we decided that we would storm Ipswich docks and see what we could plunder. We slipped our mooring and made our way stealthily up river to Ipswich.
Whilst our approach to the docks went unnoticed on approaching the lock gates we saw that we had been sussed and that a ferocious grey funnel vessel was preparing to leave the lock and defend the dockyards from two marauding raiders.
Fearing for life and limb we turned tail and ran back for the entrance of the river and surely the ability to lose ourselves in the melee of all the other vessels. We had a good lead on the vessel, but we could see that it was gaining and that the end may come sooner than we had hoped.
As they passed and made to cross our bow and cut off our escape, Clive stood steadfast and continued on. Seeing that we were not about to come to. And that we were at ramming speed ready to board and claim our prize, the Grey Funnel called Raider decided that they would leave to fight another day with bigger fish. We sat back and continued out way back toward the confluence of the Stour and Orwell.
On approaching the Felixstowe docks and Shotley we chose to head up the Stour. A nice empty stretch of river with not much traffic and studied the construction platforms that we moored up, well more like jacked up as they were the jack up crane platforms for the wind farm.
We continued passed for a little while whilst deciding that though a nice quiet rive, there didn’t appear much to be up here. So we picked a spot on the port side of the river across from the Royal Hospital School to drop the hook and have lunch. This was another new experience, dropping the hook and getting it to dig in. It appeared to drag for a moment and then we appeared to have made fast. We waited a few moments whilst the chain settled on the river bed and we settled forward slightly.
Once happy that we weren’t going anywhere we settled down to a nice spot of lunch and watched the world go by, waiting to see if the wind would pick up.
