It’s been a little while, and we have been busy with other things than me keeping the blog up to date. In part the sailing up past Dover, to where we are now; Sandwich in Kent, but also seeing friends in Poole, and various adventures on the way.
From Plymouth we sailed to Swanage, crossing Lyme Bay in a day, quite comfortably. The weather on Thursday was brilliant sunshine and Weasterly winds, and we arrived at Swanage by 2PM. The day at Swanage we spent walking the cliffs and visiting the National Park there. The weather forecast showed strong Easterly winds the next morning, so we moved to Poole Harbour for better shelter.
The sailing season is not yet active, it’s only April after all, so we could use a free mooring ball instead of having to anchor. This is when a dinghy is useful: for getting to shore. We went ashore on Friday morning, to escape the rain. The day was spent in Poole, a large part of it at the weatherspoons pub in the warmth.
It being good Friday there was a lively atmosphere in the pubs in Poole, even though outside the rain never held up, and the wind too was blowing it sideways. In the evening we found a live music pub on the waterfront at Poole, the Lord Nelson. Music, and later on the a DJ, we had a great time. By 1AM we decided to head back to the boat for some sleep.
Unfortunately for us, after the 2 km walk along the shoreside, we found that the dinghy we had left at the harbour was gone, stolen. Very unfortunate, as it’s only about 10 degrees in the water, and at 2AM, nobody about to give us a lift out. We ended up walking back into town, hoping to find a hotel or somewhere to sleep!
In the end we found no hotel, and all the online AirBnB and apps only allowed to book a place for Saturday to Sunday, not what we needed: a place for Friday to Saturday! So, in the end we found ourselves back at the Lord Nelson, and the few remaining people there were very helpful, phoning hotels for us and racking their brains fore where we could find shelter for the night.
Eventually we were offered a place to sleep at a someone who lives right in Poole centre in the old town, the gentleman – Sam – was very kind, and it just shows how kind people are. It’s easy to forget when you rarely find yourself in need in these times of wealth and individualism. So, many thanks Sam for you kindness, and for the breakfast omelette the next morning too.
After getting back out to the boat the next day we still didn’t have good conditions for continuing the voyage to Sweden, and we moved to a marina pontoon instead. The dinghy was never found, we did look through the bushes and in the reeds along the harbour, to see if it had been hidden somewhere, but no luck.
Anyhow, we stayed another night at a friend of mine who has a farm nearby, and on Monday sailed for the Dover straights. Perfect spinnaker sailing the whole way, and to the mouth of the river Stour, where we waited for the tide and motored the last bit up to Sandwich in the evening of April 22nd.
We now have to wait for the next weather window to sail to Germany, and for the next week it’s not looking very good. We shall see what we do to spend the time, but we shall certainly visit London a few days, pehapps Canterbury, and Dover castle too.
