Location:  51 38.555N 000 39.829E

Yesterday was not ever so pleasant. I woke up feeling terrible (probably a bought of bird/pig/human flu or something), so decided I wasn’t going to be moving the boat anywhere. The weather was gloomy anyway and I was really lacking energy, so stayed in bed all day – still at anchor in that little creek. I got up a couple of times to make food, but apart from that spent all day reading, listening to Radio 4, and drinking lots and lots of tea, orange juice, hot chocolate, and lemsip (black current, because lemon is yuck).

Quite relieved, I woke up this morning feeling much better, so made myself a couple of boiled eggs and then weighed anchor. I motored out of the creek – about 100m – then killed the engine and set off under genoa. The main is a pain to put up because the torpedo thingies fall out of the bottom of the mast track so you need to get up on the deck and juggle between feeding them in the groove and pulling on the halyard. Being up there means I can’t steer, and everything gets a bit flustered. I will fit a stopper before I go anywhere else.

Still, under genoa alone, and close hauled, I was getting 3.5 – 4knots up the river.  I rang ahead to Fambridge Yacht harbour and managed to get a spot on the pontoon, where I’ve just been to meet up with a couple I met in St Kat’s over the winter. They have their boat in one of the sheds, having some rather substantial work done to the deck!

Fambridge is beautiful. When the sun is out, the green, erm, stuff, growing on the mud makes it look like some sort of telly tubby/hobbit land.

It’s £15  a night, including electricity, and while that’s a bit too much for my budget I think, I’m going to stay here for a few days while I sort out Kudu for her next leg.

I need to acquire  an auto-helm, but having made a phone call, it seems nowhere has any in stock. Raymarine are having problems, and subsequently Simrad have sold out of their equivalent. I must find one before I go any further though.

Other jobs will be to sort out that mainsail track, fit the other solar cell, and hopefully finish the stern locker lid that I started in St Kat’s. I’m hoping I can get it all done in three days, because my budget will be on it’s last legs if I don’t.

I’ll leave you with a picture on the sunset last night, taken from my phone since everything else had ran out of juice. The clouds cleared just to deliver that sight, before returning to overcast shortly afterwards.

Sunset on the creek last night

If you could see where I was… oh, hold on you can…

Anchorage on the River Crouch

… you’d appreciate how amazed I am that I can get  GPRS connection in order to post this.

After a fairly hard sail across the estuary, and then dropping off my crew, Richard, in Burnham-on-Crouch, I’ve finally found a place to stop for the evening.

Richard had never been sailing before and after helming a lot yesterday, I thought I’d give him a go today. The wind picked up quite a lot just as we set off from the Medway and by the time I put him on the tiller it was about 10 knots. It then started gusting to 16 knots, so I put a reef in, but Richard was struggling on the helm, so I put another reef in the main, and furled the genoa quite to a jib size.

We were still making 3.5-4knots on the log and all was well until a 25knots gust hit us, the boat rounded to windward and Rich lost himself. Kudu fell flat on her side, but after a bit of shouting orders and pulling on ropes, we were upright and moving again. Richard seemed to be silent after this; he was quite panicked as it turns out. I explained the boat would always stay upright, no matter what (well, he doesn’t need to know about breaking waves! :p), so I think he’s be fine the next time it happens.

We continued our merry way across the estuary and finally tacked on to a course into the Crouch.

I’m going to have to speed this blog post up since I’m running low on battery..ded

I dropped Richard of at Burnham town jetty, but you’re not allowed to moor on the hammerhead since the Essex Marina ferry uses it. I was aware of this so our goodbye was quite brief. I cast off from the hammerhead and motored up the river, still aided by the tidal flood.

It was at this point that it struck me. I’m alone, I’m covered in salt, I need a shower, and despite being quite cheerful and content, was very concerned about what I’d just done; become a single handed round britain sailor.

I passed Burnham yacht harbour and and Essex marina with great envy since I don’t have the money to stay at them, imaging their lovely warm showers and shore power as I motored by. I also didn’t have a clue where I was going to stay since my charts of the river had “ran out” at Burnham. Upstream from here was unknown to me.

As uck would have it though, I’ve found a perfect spot a few miles up from Burnham.; a little creak just passed Bridgemarsh marina. Only a tiny boat like Kudu could stay down here, but nevertheless, it’s perfect. Sheltered, still, and nothing but the sound of chatting birds (and radio4 ) to disturb my thoughts.

I’ve also had  a good old wash too. I boiled some water and filled the sink with hot water (mixed with some cold), then had an all over wash with shower gel… obviously I took the opportunity to use that water to wash the dishes too :p

So far, so good. Tomorrow I’m off further up the river to hopefully meet some friends I met in St Kat’s and to find somewhere to charge my camera and laptop. I’m going to be around these parts for at least a few days since I’ve realised that I absolutely have to get an autohelm in order to be safe on my own.

Oh! One moment of drama I didn’t mention.

I was below, with Richard on the tiller, when I heard a knocking noise. It sounded like something hard hitting the boat, so I looked out with concern. It turned out to be the inner shroud bottle screw had undone itself, but oh so luckily, on the leeward side. I clipped on, and in the still quite rough sea, spent quite a while trying to sort it out. The drama!

Ok, power is down to 10 mins, so I’m off.

I’ll be back when I find a charge.

After a lovely meal in the pub with a couple we met at Queenborough, we came back to the boat, moored on the concrete lighter in the middle of the swale.

During the night the wind shifted, pushing onto the lighter, and my little fenders couldn’t keep Kudu far enough away to stop the starboard shroud rubbing on the concrete. I was up every once in a while to wrap more duct tape and rags around it.

That’s the thing with a boat away from a marina, you can’t be lazy. If the motion changes, or there a sound you’re not used to, you can’t just stay in bed and wait for the morning, because by then the damage could already be done. As reluctant as you are, and I certainly was, you just have to get up to check, and fix anything you find. It doesn’t help that I’m getting a cold either.

The weather is considerably worse today. 100% could cover and about 10 knots of wind, which will make sailing across the estuary a bit more exciting than yesterday’s trip down the river – due to a completely wrong shipping forecast we only managed to get the sails up once we turned south into the Medway. Still, it was Richard’s first time under sail and he was happy we did. I think he might change his mind today

Right, net stop, Burham-on-Crouch…. some hours away.

Must go, got a tide to catch

Saturday 2nd May, 2009.

Thames, mainly westerly, 3 to 4, occasionally 5, fog, moderate or good (occasionally poor)

Good morning!

That is almost perfect. Hopefully the fog will bugger off, but the westerly is great news. I won’t tell richard about the sea state though.

The bad news is I’ve had absolutely no sleep at all. I went to bed at 1200, but people decided to sit on the docks chatting away loudly at about 0100. In the end I had to turn on the fan heater with the heat switched off in order to create some white noise ot drown them out. It worked, but I still didn’t sleep. Before I knew it my alarm had gone off at 0500 and I was jotting down the shipping forecast.

This is annoying, but some coffee will sort me out. Got a few jobs to do now (washing up!).

Here I am. My once daydream is no more, and the sobering reality of the situation I’m about to put myself in is starting to bite.

I’ve just stopped working on the boat for the evening in order to get some final admin work done; emails, this, and so on. I’ve having a glass of wine and then getting an early night for a 5AM start. I need to finish of some jobs on my checklist, but they can wait until the morning. Hopefully I lock out at 0800, but having left booking the lock out till the last minute, I discovered that they are fully booked. Oops. I have to speak to them at 0700 and ask nicely if they can fit Kudu in the 0800 lock-out. I bloody well hope they can anyway!

Oh, also in true last minute style, the outboard saga was drawn to a close this afternoon. To cut a long story short, or rather, save it for another time, my dear dad drove down from Lancashire just to give me a lift to Southend in Essex to pick up the engine and bring it back to the boat in London. The warranty job cost £700 in parts, plus labour, which considering I only paid £715 for the engine, seems bloody moronic.

Kudu is also filled with food now. Myself and my leg one partner, Richard, went to Sainsbury’s in Whitechapel and bought a LOAD of food. Two rucksacks and 5 carrier bags full actually. I got bargain basement tins of veg and fruit, as well as packets of noodles and cous cous, which should last me for quite sometime.

So anyway, that’s me. I’m quite nervous, but I am ready. I really do wish that people in one of the houses that’s built on the edge of the marina wall weren’t having quite such a loud party though.

Good night!