After our sea survival course from Blakeney to Lowestoft the trip to Southwold was simplicity itself. We allowed plenty of extra time in case the there was more south in the SW wind than had been predicted. As it was we sailed deliberately slowly and slightly off the breeze to keep our speed down, arriving exactly as planned at 1230 ready for a 1330 HW. Turning round to face the incoming tide ready to moor is always nerve wracking as the river is quite narrow and the tide floods in a quite a rate, 3.3kts on this occasion.

Once tied up and tidied up we walked up into Southwold, we had been looking forward to time here all winter. The problem with Southwold is that it has become almost too nice, to the point where it is almost a Disneyland version of its previous self. We passed by many opportunities to buy nice things for the house or clothes to enable us to dress up a sailors and wandered back to the boat. The real joy of Southwold is really the harbour and the River at Walberswick.

It came as no surprise to find that an innocuous looking low pressure system brought three days of strong SSW winds effectively ‘trapping’ us here. We have however managed to fill our days with cycling, walking, swimming and the occasional trip up to Southwold for a small Adnam’s and people watching outside the Crown Hotel.

An unfortunate incident on Monday resulted in a motor boat being lost when its motor failed in the harbour entrance and it was dashed against the wall of the outer harbour. Fortunately the crew got off safely but the upturned hull is a sobering sight.

Really foul weather is predicted for the weekend so we are hoping to get down into the relative shelter of the river Orwell, preferably at Pin Mill on Thursday.

As planned last night we moved the boat round to the outer harbour at about 2200hrs only to return to the inner harbour when we found out how rough it was. Maybe we should have taken a hint.

The wind has been blowing from the north for a couple of days, this spells trouble for east coast sailors as the seas build up in the north sea and are concentrated as the North Sea narrows in the south.

Looking at the forecast we felt that there was a window of opportunity if we could get safely out of Blakeney. Up at 0500 and underway by 0545 the trip out of the harbour was terrifying but achieved without serious incident and we were at the fairway buoy by 0630.

From Blakeney onward the trip was fast and exciting without being too demanding; careful passage planning meant that the tide was pushing us along as we whizzed past a succession of Norfolk towns and villages including Cromer.

Just after Cromer the wind died a little and backed so we shook out the two reefs and pressed on under full sail. Once round the corner we were running due south and dead downwind so the genoa had to be furled and we were making over 5kts under the mainsail only.

As we passed Yarmouth the 1200hrs inshore waters forecast gave northerly F3 or less for the remainder of the day. Immediately the wind began to increase in force and the tide turned against us piling up a horrible wind against tide rolling sea coming up from dead astern. Before long it was blowing F6 to F7 and we were surfing down huge waves, many of which were breaking sending the bow high into the air as the cockpit sunk into the trough with the breaking sea fizzing all around us.

As we approached Lowestoft we were dangerously over pressed, we had two options. We could attempt to take down the mainsail while running dead downwind with the boat rolling wildly, this would likely result in damage and possibly injury. The other option was to round up into the wind, this would simplify taking the sail down but would expose us to the risk of being hit beam on by a breaker leading to a broach.

I made the mistake of telling Belinda that I didn’t know what to do, obviously this undermined what little confidence she had remaining. Doing nothing wasn’t an option so on went the motor and we rounded up safely into the wind, Belinda kept Flamingo head to wind and managed the rope-work in the cockpit while I climbed on deck and flaked and secured the mainsail as best I could. We shipped some water as we turned back downwind, now under motor and bare poles.

Entering Lowestoft Harbour is tough at the best of times but with a huge swell running and two knots of tide sweeping past it took all of our skill to get her safely into the harbour and rafted up next to a friendly Sadler 26 from Grimsby.

There is a great feeling of tranquillity that comes from entering a safe harbour after a tough day at sea, this is especially true at the Royal Norfolk and Suffolk Yacht Club with its lovely Edwardian clubhouse sand friendly staff. Sadly this is not mirrored by life outside the club compound and a trip to Tesco Metro in the town centre left me even more traumatised than the sail.

What we must learn to do is to get more photos when the going gets tough instead of focusing solely on not drowning or sinking the boat.

We have effectively been storm-bound in Blakeney for five days; unable to leave the harbour due to strong winds. Being stuck in a port when you have planned to be moving on can be very stressful, the feeling of time ebbing away is quite damaging to morale. To make matters worse there is time to kill, time that would better be spent sailing on to the next destination. The difficulties are further compounded by the fact that you are confined to the boat while it bucks about for extended periods, especially in a drying harbour like Blakeney. In eight days of sailing we have managed to cover 11 nautical miles from Brancaster, Holland could take a very long time at this rate.

A change in circumstances however has made this a very different experience, the feeling that we have lost days of our holiday is not there, this is not a holiday. We have read, corrected charts, maintained the boat, walked on the beach (it has been windy, not rainy), chatted and listened to England dismiss the Aussies in the first ashes test amongst many other distracting pass times. Time has flown and I for one feel relaxed and calm. Blakeney pit is a magical place, there is always something to see and the light is amazing.

We wait now (at 2005 on Thurdsay 1st August) for the tide to recede so that we can move to the outer harbour and anchor ready for an early start tomorrow towards Lowestoft. This is the longest coastal passage that we will undertake at 55NM and represents the start of our trip south and the east. Inevitably we are both nervous about this first long passage, the forecast is good but not perfect and the wind has been in the north for too long so the sea state may be rougher than we would like.

Anyway the condemned crew ate a hearty curry with Nigel and said goodbye to the last of our current friends until the autumn and cracked on with preparations for the passage. If we move to the outer harbour early it will be light but rough, if we wait the harbour will have calmed down but is will be dark; the late, dark option looks favourite.

So if all goes to plan tomorrow evening will find us in Lowestoft trying to resist eating in the Royal Norfolk & Suffolk Yacht Club, sitting in full sized chairs and showering in more than two litres of water. Leaving Blakeney will be difficult though it has felt like the start of our new life.

Traditionally the summer holidays (are they still holidays? holidays from what?) start with a boy’s week when Flamingo and her best friend Little Grebe have a weeks holiday together with ‘the boys’ as crew. This year is no exception but a couple of things are making me suspect that one of the crew on Flamingo may in fact be a girl in disguise. As this is a great British naval tradition I’m prepared to let it go this time. Nigel on Little Grebe has already got through two crew, our former teaching colleague Tony and Nigel’s brother Adrian.

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The weather has dominated our week so far with blisteringly hot sunshine and perfect F3 to F4 winds giving us some superb sailing including a trip to Wells and Blakeney. We have also suffered one day of strong winds and rain while at anchor in Brancaster outer harbour. As I type we are storm bound in Blakeney being absolutely battered by 30kt plus winds. We have picked up what looks like a well maintained and substantial buoy but there seems to be no let up so we could be stuck here for three or four days yet; there are however worse places to be stuck.

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We are settling into a bit of a rhythm aboard Flamingo with the boat looking quite organised. We are spending our time swimming, walking, rowing, eating, drinking, reading, watching The Tour de France and sailing. Already we have had some lovely moments including a picnic tea on the beach at Blakeney followed by tackling a bottle of Speyside that found its way aboard with Adrian who has been crewing aboard Little Grebe.

All things considered we are adapting well to our new circumstances and surroundings but clearly there is a long way to go. Talking of which we are now itching to get going south as soon as the weather allows, we have so many favourite places that we want to visit before we head east to the Netherlands.

School really is out, and not just for the summer. After a lovely final week at work I am now finally retired. Wow, wow, wow, this is going to take some getting used to. After all of the lovely comments and cards, especially from some of the students I was beginning to wonder why I was leaving the career that I have loved for so long; then I started getting emails about the training day in September and I recalled exactly why.

We have had some lovely sails over the last few weeks culminating with a cracking weekend sail to Wells-Next-The-Sea with my good friend Neil. Weather and tides fell into perfect order for a fantastic weekend of sailing, walking, chatting, eating and drinking.

Sadly it’s not all play time, there is work to do to the boat, provisioning and packing. Flamingo is floating lower and lower on her marks as we load food, clothes, bicycles, life raft, dinghy, books, DVDs and a seemingly never ending list of chandlery and equipment.

One job that I had been putting off was a trip to the top of the mast to fix the wind anemometer, when it spins the cups catch on the mounting causing it to slow down giving an incorrect reading. Even more inconvenient is the tick, tick ticking that reverberates down the mast and keeps us awake at night. At 12.5 metres above the water the trip to the top of the mast is dangerous, terrifying and very tiring; certainly not something to be done lightly or twice in a day. One tip for anyone working at the top of the mast is to not drop the only Allen key that fits the anemometer as it will bounce once on deck and further add to our list of seabed tools. I did manage to use a spanner to remove the actual cups so the ticking will stop but another trip up will be needed to recover the instrument for repair.

Two more days now and our adventure will finally be beginning and it’s forecast 30 degrees!

Friday 17th May saw us driving to Brancaster Staithe at the end of a busy and defining week. On Thursday evening I clicked a button on the Teachers Pensions website that ‘irrevocably’ claimed my pension, and on Friday I tendered my resignation. As of 31st August I will no longer be a teacher; this change is clearly going to take some time to fully assimilate.

After an agreeable evening eating a pre-prepared Thai curry and a glass of nice red we settled into our newly re-upholstered fore-peak berth. The foam had lost the majority of it’s resilience so we had purchased new foam, zips and fabric and set too with the Bernina to create a new bed. Not that we got much chance to enjoy it as the alarm sounded at 0525 to enable us to catch the first of the early tide; by 0600 we were off the mooring on a grey cold early summer’s morning.

With a F3 NE breeze we had a cracking fetch down the coast towards Wells under full white sail; a rare occurrence on the Parker which carries a lot of sail and requires early reefing in anything over a F3. To enable us to lay our course we could have done with the wind being 15 degrees freer (i.e. more northerly) as it pushed us further into Holkham Bay. As we approached the beach the diesel went back on and the sails were stowed in preparation for a lumpy crossing of Wells Bar. We were safely tied up on the Wells pontoons by 0825, having used the tide to turn the boat ready for an early start on Sunday morning to get back to Brancaster for the Cruiser Launch Lunch.

Most of the day was spent sorting a range of jobs that hadn’t been completed over the summer: shore power (Belinda can now use her hair dryer aboard); cabin temperature sensor for the heater; new Bluetooth Navtex and antenna and tidying of the GPS antenna cabling. All of which was very messy.

The evening was spent walking down to the beach and admiring the view across the marsh to Wells town front and to Blakeney beyond. The full moon was hidden behind the clouds but the Spring Tide that it brought covered the marsh to an extent that we rarely see.

Another early night and another 0530 alarm ready to catch the tide back to Brancaster to host the Launch Lunch. Unfortunately a quick lift of the hatch revealed very thick fog, which combined with the possibility of a rough crossing of the bar decided us to have a lie in and take the bus back to Brancaster. After a sumptuous lunch at Brancaster Staithe Sailing Club we got a lift back to Wells in time for the evening tide. The return trip from Wells to Brancaster is significantly more difficult as the tide turns Easterly as soon as you are able to leave Wells and pushes you back throughout the journey. With little wind we had to run the diesel quite hard all the way back but we did manage the whole trip in just under three hours.

Yet another early night and an 0500 alarm in time to tender ashore and drive back to Lincoln in time for work. Sadly contact with teenagers soon revealed that I had possibly had too much fun and too little sleep to be fully rested; suffice to say that some of my lessons may not have met OFSTED standards.

The Scandinavian high pressure system was still stubbornly parked off Norway deflecting the Atlantic lows and giving us relentless strong easterlies; this brings the probability of unpleasant seas and worse, the possibility of not being able to enter any of the North Norfolk coastal ports. However as we delivered the tender to Brancaster by car on Tuesday it began to look like there would be a small opportunity on Wednesday. The problem was that if the forecast was even slightly wrong the winds would be strong from the east or north east.

The 0600 inshore waters forecast on Wednesday offered hope of success with only fleeting references to F5 winds and Moderate seas. The drill for an early start is well established and from being in our berths at 0600 we were underway by 0645 under a clear blue sky and light winds. Cups of tea and breakfast were taken as we motored down the Welland towards Tabs Head, the conjunction of the Welland and the Haven (tidal Witham). The tides often dictate early starts and late finishes but you are always rewarded with a sunrise, or sunset, or moonrise, or ……………..

Beyond Tabs Head is the point of no return but on arrival we found the sea to be almost flat and with light winds we decided to ‘go for it’. Our plan to follow the old Boston Deep channel and anchor off Gibraltar Point was soon reconsidered as it would have left us vulnerable to any strong north easterlies. Instead we took the ‘big’ ship Freeman Channel and beat our way across to Hunstanton and through the Bays with two reefs in the main and two thirds of the genoa rolled out. This would give us some protection in the lee of the eastern side of the wash.

Once through The Bays, from 1300hrs onwards the wind rose and the seas got up so we rolled the genoa to about one third and plugged on towards Brancaster with Flamingo doing what she does best, shrugging off wind and waves and keeping us safe. By 1645 we were safely tied up on our mooring in our home port, the Flamingo has landed. A lovely evening eating homemade spinach and potato curry and drinking Woodford Reserve bourbon, all with the new heating on (luxury) made all of the winter’s work and expense feel well worth it.

Over the following four days we settled in, tackled a whole host of little jobs and enjoyed the best Easter weather in recent memory. Evenings were spent watching amazing sunsets and moon rises; playing backgammon and congratulating ourselves on our decision to fit a heater (did I mention the heater?). In the mornings we lay in bed drinking tea and checking the view from the hatch, and honing a plan to replace the foam in the fore-peak cabin which after 24 years of use is feeling rather sad.

Oh yes, we also took a deep breath and reminded ourselves how lucky we are to be doing this.

Flamingo was launched without incident as planned on Monday 15th April 2019, it’s always nerve wracking but the yard crew are utterly professional as ever. A miraculous transformation takes place when a boat goes back into the water. On her yard trolley she is ungainly; positively precarious in the hoist but she becomes a boat again as she returns to her intended element.

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One last job before she goes into the water is to finish the anti-fouling, there are areas on the hull that are inaccessible when she is on her trolley and the keel needs to be done. With Flamingo in the slings we discovered that we had left the painting rollers at home! Sailors need to be resourceful so, as recommended by Tom Cunliffe, I raided the skip and returned with a recently discarded roller, unfortunately it had been used for painting blue so our keel now has a psychedelic blue/purple/red marbled paint effect.

The cabin windows have leaked slightly for several seasons, this is not catastrophic but does cause damp cushions and occasional drips on your head when hunkered down on a rainy day. Various patch-up repairs have failed over the years so this is a job that I wanted to get done this year if time permitted. The striping on the coach-roof has also become very badly faded by UV light; this striping runs under the windows so replacing it while the windows are out makes a lot of sense.

This turned out to be a mammoth job, taking almost a day and a half to complete although part of this was caused by my continued efforts to slow down and enjoy working slowly.

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A Google search will reveal are as many methods for sealing windows as there are boats out there; I opted to use 3mm closed cell polyurethane foam sheet to make gaskets, preferring this to using sealants on the grounds that the windows can be removed again simply for future maintenance. Gaskets do however rely on the securing screws having sufficient grip which certainly wasn’t the case, so I ordered new screws and inserted a mahogany filler piece into each hole to give the screws extra grip.

The result has smartened the topsides up considerably, none of which we will see from the cockpit but Flamingo does need to look her best. We were unable to test the windows thoroughly but a couple of buckets of water failed to penetrate the cabin so fingers crossed. I imagine that we may get some rain during April to give it a more thorough test.

While I was poncing about on vanity projects Belinda hand polished the whole hull and anti-fouled underneath; these are actual grotty jobs that need doing. Launch day is scheduled for Monday with a planned delivery trip to Brancaster on Wednesday; unfortunately a particular stubborn high pressure system has parked itself off the Norwegian coast blocking the Atlantic lows and causing persistent strong Easterly winds so we may have to delay our departure.

Following many days of careful and at times challenging work the Webasto heater finally works, filling the cabin with lovely warm air. There has been a considerable financial cost but the project has been fun and it is clear that it will be a game changer now that it is working. We will now be able to retire to a cosy warm cabin after a chilly sail or on a cold spring or autumn evening.

With that job completed there remained one potentially problematic task to do; change the eye bolts on top of the keel. This has the potential to be a grotty job, working under the boat to jack the keel up sufficiently to push the top of it out through the access panel on deck so that the old eye bolts can be removed. There is a considerable danger of trapping a finger (or worse) between the 320kg keel and the keel box so work has to be slow and meticulous. With all of this in mind I considered leaving it to next season but good sense told me that now was the time.

As soon as I applied the stillson wrench to the eye it became clear that this was the right decision, gradually the thick coat of corrosion crumbled away to reveal a rather miserable looking piece of solid metal within.

Quite how this ring was lifting 320kg of keel is a mystery, what is clear though is that if we had used it for one more season it would have broken with potentially disastrous consequences.

Buoyed by this success I tackled one more easy but grubby job, servicing the heads. Deep breath, rubber gloves and a scrubbing brush; 40 minutes later all of the components have been scrubbed clean of limescale (and other detritus), lubricated and reassembled. This should give us another season of trouble and odour free operation.

While all of this was going on Belinda has cleaned, scrubbed and tidied the interior and Flamingo now begins to resemble a boat rather than a landfill site.