A bit of adventurous sailing here from Ramsgate yesterday, the wind being about three times stronger than forecast, so 3m waves to plough through, and the huge ferries to dodge as we came into the harbour added to the experience. In Granville Dock, part of the marina, from yesterday evening. Very sheltered and locked in at low tide.

The A20 dominates the harbour with 1000s of vehicles from juggernauts to bicycles thundering in both direction on and off the ferries daily, cutting the beach and harbour from the rest of the town.

The Harbour Board own the sea front crescent, beautiful Victorian architecture though pretty run down. The sea front itself has had a lot of regeneration work in the last year and it’s looking good! Alas some ghastly derelict 1970s office buildings and other abominations are behind it, though these are about to be pulled down with a new shopping and cinema complex in its place. Let’s hope for better architecture!

I spent today being a domestic goddess, domestic something anyway! I made a batch of strawberry jam after scoring three punnets of said fruit for 59p each in Ramsgate Waitrose on Monday, now transformed into 6 jars of deliciousness. I also tried the oven for bread baking and have three loaves at the ready, a little burnt on their bottoms but hey, two for the freezer and one for breakfast.

Clive sourced a chart for the south coast and carried out various running repairs. We discovered an excellent Chandlery close to the mooring, a proper old fashioned seafarers delight. After an extensive search of the town by Clive, we can confirm two things…. The first is that the town centre is less than attractive and there are no 5 litre containers of vinegar to be found anywhere, much needed for bilge cleansing. In a few years time, Dover could be on the ‘up’ and join the ranks of Margate in shabby chicness.

Looking at the weather and the tides, our next port of call is likely to be Newhaven or Eastbourn, and the best day to set off will be Saturday, after a nasty low front tomorrow night moves through. It’ll be up to 12 hours sailing so we need to be prepared food wise, time wise and tide wise. If anyone would like to come with us, extra crew most welcome.

Though the thought of two more days in Dover isn’t the most appealing of ideas, it will coincide with good pals Birgit & Carsten and their two kids Tim & Jule, who are on their way home via Dover to Germany after three weeks holiday in Devon & Cornwall, so we hope to see them on Friday or even tomorrow. Tonight we’re going to the Mash Tun, recommended by pals in Harwich, tomorrow maybe the Castle, which is quite a spectacle as you approach from the sea.

Now for tasks I shall do in each port of call

1 – take a snap of the ongoing adventures of Captain Jack and Fergus

Captain Jack & Fergus in Ramsgate

2 – Bog watch – a considered report on the marine showers and loos, giving marks out of 5 with 5 being excellent and 1 poor, really only of interest to other mariners so do ignore unless you’re an avid Lucinda Lambton ‘Temples of Convenience’ fan

Bog Watch to date in brief…

Ipswich has three shower blocks

At the marina office, 5 for the loos and 3 for the showers – beautifully done however large shower heads very high, so by the time the water hits you, you have to dodge about to try and be under it.

Middle block – a portacabin, 4 for the loos and lovely and warm too, 1 for the showers

The block by the lock gates – 5 and 5, by far the best

Levington a 4 overall

Harwich all newly done, a 4 overall, showers are tokens only giving you 8 minutes exactly from entering the token. No soap dish in the shower. No drain on the floor so water pools outside the shower so keep your flip flops handy

Lowestoft 4 for loos (a 5 for the copper & brass urinals in the gents) and 3 for showers, jaded and faded

Ramsgate 4 and 4, though too far from the outer marina

Dover a 4 overall, old buildings however clean & functional

Dover Castle on approach from the sea

Luckily there are worse places to be than Ramsgate as we’re going to be here at least until tomorrow. The wind has whipped up causing lovely choppy seas which at Dover, our next port of call, is reaching Force 7 today and gusting. That’s big seas and very rough, especially where the English Channel and the North Sea converge.

The forecast for tomorrow is looking better and we hope to get going then. In the meantime, we’ve discovered an Iceland and a Waitrose are both in town, so stocking up is our task for the afternoon.

Distant Drum in Ramsgate

Distant Drum in Ramsgate

A beautiful Saturday and we decided to stay in Ramsgate to do a bit of exploring and importantly to get our freezer down to minus 17 from plus 17 when we switched in on in the morning. Good pals Liz & Claire live in Whitstable, not too far from Ramsgate, and a quick text established they were free and en route back from Deal in the evening, so dinner was duly scheduled.

Where to go????

Trip Advisor, asking the locals and checking the Gourmet Society website, we found an unusual cuisine, Russian! The name of the restaurant is CCCP, the Russian initials for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and an affable proprietor calling himself Ramsey (the closest approximation to his Russian name which was apparently unpronounceable) welcomed us in. We were encouraged to have Russian beer (very good it was too) and each tried a different starter. The Borsht was excellent and Herring salad a superb choice. Our mains were equally delicious and our host snapped a shot for their Facebook page. The final third of a largely devoured main dish was offered to take away, and accepted. All was well with the world and we were delighted to have found such an unusual venue.

We were enjoying our hosts good humour and marvelous hospitality until he decided to tell us some tales….. it started with Catholic versus Orthodox Christening for their daughter, Putin, Lithuanian female heads of state and how inappropriate they were, especially when they weren’t married and had no children – what do they know about life!? Etc….. We hadn’t even got to the dessert menu and were on the point of asking for the bill when he insisted we had home made Russian honey layer cake with ice cream and that we try the Gold Vodka. More tales came thick and fast, Belarus using the Euro, car tolls robbing you blind in Lithuania, it was relentless.

The cake was excellent, the vodka magnificent, and though we almost believed these were gifts from our insistent host, they were itemised on the bill when at last we managed to extract this from Ramsey. A final item on the chit for 50p intrigued us. What was this? Listed as a ‘service’ item, Ramsey proudly announced this was for the take away carton in a doggie-do bag he’d insisted on.

Two of us whipped out Debit cards to pay the bill and though he had the card machine in his hand, he spoke verbosely about us paying in cash, then began a new rhetoric on how much he has to pay to use the debit card machine. Angling for adding even more onto the bill, when we’d already included a tip, Liz – never previously famous for her assertiveness – snapped, we’re already giving you a tip. Here’s another. If you don’t process our payments now, we’re knocking the tip off and will only pay exactly what’s on the bill. He made to ignore this, looking to Clive for help, so it was repeated firmly and clearly. He smiled affably, all cheeky dimples and shiny eyes, ungraciously accepting that though he’d won overall, he’d tripped at the final hurdle.

Beyond Clacton

I can’t remember when I last updated you. Ah yes, before the funeral….

Florence had a send of to be proud of, two wonderful Welsh cobs called Tom & Will, wearing full regalia including black feather plumes, were transported from Llandovery to Frome in Somerset, along with horse drawn hearse, and stopped the traffic. Forget Glastonbury, this was ‘Class’ with a capital ‘C’. Clive and his family all thought how much their mum would have loved it, being an old London gal.

Clive & I stopped the weekend at Florence’s house along with Clive’s brothers David, Jason and sister Jackie, and various other family members at one stage or another. We took the top bedroom, surrounded by cupboards bursting with balls of wool and all sorts of craft materials, sewing machines, dust, curtains, more dust… The loo on the 1^st floor has been broken for eons, even though at numerous times last year Clive and his siblings had arranged for repair. And the only working toilet was adjacent to the kitchen, behind a shower curtain on the ground floor. (This never bothered Florence as she lived on the ground floor). So anything beyond a quick pee required one to make a request to others to stop making their tea and bugger off into the next room, or the garden, and shut the door & turn the TV volume up while they’re at it… you get the picture.

When we got back to Harwich the following Tuesday we stayed at the cottage so we could whip the garden into shape and drench the thirsty pots and tubs, which had been thoroughly neglected during the previous couple of months. It looks divine now and I have included a couple of pictures here.

We saw out the end of the Harwich Festival, which concluded in a great concert featuring Vivaldi Four Seasons, a Purcell and a Handel piece, all performed by a Baroque Orchestra from the London School of Music. The Harpsichords were a piece of art in themselves, hand built by Alan Gotto from Norwich who we met after the show. And we caught up with some of our old pals in Stansted at the weekend, including Maxine, Sonia, Gloria, Mat, Ruth, Matthieu and the fabulous Nigs.

The weather looked perfect for a Friday sail south and Clive’s brother Jason spent a nightmare day on Thursday – the day of the tube and rail strikes – braving the trains, London buses & foot power to eventually reach us after nine hours of travel from Torquay. Exhausted and frustrated, he bemoaned how this country operates and how anybody in their right minds uses public transport. Both Clive and I did on our respective commutes for many years, and I have to agree with him (which was why I began my commuter revolt a few years back, but that’s another tale and another lifetime).

Friday came and it was perfect condition for sailing south, apart from Jason losing his glasses. We cast off at 11.30 and got the mainsail up straight away. We headed out into the North Sea towards the Black Deep wind farm and then Foulgers Gat, and foul it was too. The North Sea is so shallow and the magnificent wind farms make excellent use of the shallowest areas, which keeps sailing and other vessels well clear of the dangers. Foulgers Gat is a narrow channel almost at the end of a huge wind farm, and you steer between the turbines, taking great care of the enormous blades as they sweep majestically towards the mast. On and on, turbine after turbine, our nerves fraying with every approaching windmill. It wasn’t a straight line through and the buoyage leaves something to be desired. I did get some fantastic shots however!

On exiting the Gat, with a huge sigh of relief, we then started our passage across the Thames Estuary, which is enormous, and includes the large vessel traffic separation scheme, which involves keeping a sharp lookout for very fast moving, heavy & huge freighters, tankers and even faster wind farm catamarans. A large bull seal popped up to say hello and promptly went off fishing again.

We shaped our course for North Foreland, a term familiar to anyone who listens to the BBC Shipping Forecasts. Then rounded the headland to line up with the entry buoyage for Ramsgate, where we arrived and moored safely at 7.30pm. After a spaghetti feast we wended our tired way to the Artillery pub which Harwich friends Howard & Sue recommended. I retired first and was fast asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Today Jason disappeared early to catch the 7.50 train to London, homeward bound to Torquay. At 8.50 we received his text saying the train driver hadn’t turned up yet, quelle surprise, however he had found an exact replica of his lost glasses when he was packing his bag first thing. A miracle!

We’re going to explore Ramsgate today and head on to Dover tomorrow.

Our Green Man made by artist Gay Gallsworthy

The hydrangeas are a picture

North Foreland

Too close!

Turbines behind us

Windfarm accommodation

Through Foulgers Gat 

Through Foulgers Gat II

Too close for comfort!

Majestic turbines

Too close for comfort II

Who’s that on helm?

Lone turbine

Will they never end….

Clive peeking through the helm

Majestic turbines

Sky of blue and sea of green

In the distance, the Principality of Sealand, ex HM Fort Roughs

Jason on the look out

Bye for now…. X

When things go wrong…..

Whilst Clive spent the weekend with his family in Somerset, catching up on stories about Florence, his mum, with lots of laughter and tears, I stayed on board Distant Drum at Ha’penny Pier being looked after by the lovely guys, Nick, John & Mike who between them manage all the visitors yachts and cruisers, the fishing boats and the Shotley / Felixstowe / Harwich Ferry. Live music locally and seeing good friends helped the weekend go by well. The generator kept working, though I had to clear weed from the sieve a couple of times, and I managed to keep the freezer frozen, the water hot and everything chugging well.

Clive was back on Monday just in time for the pump impeller to go again, sigh! I timed how long it took to repair, about two hours start to finish including some general maintenance on the generator. Just when we thought we had it all nailed, the trigger switch in the grey water tank clogged up, then clogged the pump (another pump, the boat is full of them) and another dismantling the bowels of the boat took place, Sigh again. As with all odd events, if they happen twice, there’s going to be a third, and even a fourth, fifth, sixth…..

We went to fetch our Avon rib with the intention of raising it onto our newly superdooper strengthened and adapted Davits (the things that hang at the back of your boat to lift your dinghy). This wasn’t as easy as we hoped. The battery was flat for starters. I got it onto the charger at the Harwich & Dovercourt Sailing Club and did an overnight slow boost, then put it back into the rib at the weekend. On Tuesday we got the petrol tank reconnected and lowered the rib into the water, and it started beautifully.

Clive whizzed off in a straight line and kept going in a straight line. The steering had seized! Using a combination of rowing and motoring, he managed to return to the pontoon. We craned the rib back onto her trailer and I towed her over to Seamark Nunn in Trimley for an overnight repair.

Collected the next day, we waited again for high tide then relaunched the rib – third time lucky… She started and went beautifully. We got her round to our yacht and put into action our lovely davits. The rope inside was all snarled up – another hour of shunting and undoing and dropping things and pulling and pushing and tweaking and swearing mildly, then swearing less mildly, and ropes were all back where they should be. This still didn’t work – too much rope for the davits and we couldn’t raise the rib high enough. Clive turned to me and said, “we better sell the rib, it’s just too big”. We left the rib on the ropes and I went to play Crib for the Globe against The British Flag, a friendly match and another story all on its own.

When I caught up with Clive afterwards, I heard one of the sooperdooper strengthened davits had snapped in half, dumping the engine end of the rib into the sea. Sigh! All retrieved and now back with the engineering company who ‘strengthened’ it in the first place. Definitely a good decision to sell the rib, even though it is lovely. Just too heavy and too big for what we need.

Anything else? I hear you ask…. While Clive was in Somerset I tried to start his old Jag which had been idle a couple of months. I couldn’t get the doors open with the key fob. Then after opening manually, I couldn’t lock them again. I couldn’t get the boot open either to take the battery out for a recharge. This all had to wait until Tuesday and I’m glad to say after much more shunting and mild swearing it all got sorted out and Max the Jag now runs like a dream once again.

After our week of mini disasters, we aimed for a change of scenery and a proper sail, and set out for Lowestoft up the east coast. It was lovely though a bit of a cold breeze. We sailed past the River Deben, the River Ore (which turns into the River Alde at Aldeborough), Orford Ness where the military used to test nuclear type weaponry and is now a nature reserve run by The National Trust, past Aldeborough, Thorpeness, Leiston Nuclear Power plant, Southwold and on up to Lowestoft. We realised en route that this was our first proper sail together on Distant Drum, with no extra crew, and we got on just fine without death or serious damage, always considered a success in maritime terms.

As we turned into the harbour entrance in Lowestoft, the Royal Norfolk & Suffolk Yacht Club came into view on our port side. A welcome retreat where we could plug into the mains, fill our water tanks and base ourselves for the weekend. Other sailors had just arrived and they helped us berth. I referred to them as midwives and it is great to have midwives on hand when you’re berthing! The clubhouse is a fabulous Grade II Arts & Crafts building dating from 1904, excellent beers straight from the barrel and the reputation of the men’s urinals is known far and wide, all pottery and porcelain (I of course took a sneaky peek and even took a picture). The ladies on the other hand were nothing to write about.

Lowestoft was once a hugely busy seaside resort as well as shipbuilding port. It got bombed to hell and back in both the first and second world wars and went into a major decline over the last twenty years. It now seems to be on the up. There’s something tangible happening along the seafront and in the town. The old department stores have managed to survive and there’s a friendly vibe about the place. We got Clive’s sunnies repaired at the opticians for free too, which all made for a good weekend. An old friend of mine Roy from college lives in Lowestoft and though he complained constantly about the short notice of our arrival, we met him and Steve (his partner) for an aperitif before walking to Pakefield, south of the town, for dinner at The Jolly Sailors and back along the beach. I don’t normally walk that far unless I’m being sponsored. And the length of the boys’ legs meant I had to quick walk to keep up!

On our last evening here, we took the bus out to Pakefield again to visit a pub called the Trowel & Hammer, the oldest surviving pub in Lowestoft, built in late 1500s to feed and water the stone masons and builders of the unusual thatched church next door. It was showing its age, and the pool table was thoroughly medieval!

Back along the beach we met a fellow sailor, Anton, as we returned to the yacht club, who promptly swept us up through the town to an old place called The Triangle. Great music, lots of real ales, a modern newly covered pool table, and clientele with more body piercings and tattoos than a fairground workforce. Anton, who looked just like Hagrid only shorter at 6’, proved to be a bit of a character downing pints of Ripper Ale, 8.8%! For those not beer aficionados, this is heavy duty, tasting like barley wine and rendering you legless after the first half. Not Anton!

We managed to escape shortly after midnight, before getting up at 6am for our sail back to Harwich. Managed to spring out the stern and reverse past the life boat before heading out towards the harbour mouth and into the north sea. We had a fab sail back south, averaging 8 knots in a 20 knot gusting 24 offshore norwester wind (reaching 9.8 during the gusts) with a fully reefed mainsail, our stay sail and the foresail. It was windy and the north sea is lumpy and shallow, and the sail was brilliant! Arrived at Ha’penny Pier just before five where we were met by Mike Dougan, aka Dougie.

Now Dougie used to live in Hatfield Broad Oak a few decades back, and I was brought up in Bush End, which is the next village. When we met Dougie last year in Harwich I told him this and he said, “David Davies, my solicitor, lived in Bush End”. “That’s my dad!” I replied. Small world.

Whilst we had a good sail yesterday, a Dutch couple who got here towards dusk had taken 24 hours to get across the sea with the wind on their nose and the tides on their beams the whole journey. Coping with four tides, the husband was on the helm whilst the wife spent the entire passage throwing up. We felt really sorry for them. They headed up the Orwell this morning to Ipswich where there’s no swell at all and they can have a stationary few days safely behind lock gates.

It’s the start of the Harwich Festival tonight www.harwichfestival.co.uk, and we’re invited to the art private view at The Swan Gallery, then a brass band on the LV18 Lightship and Jazz at The New Bell. We’re going to take advantage of the Festival tomorrow before heading to Somerset for Florence’s funeral. There’s a free 1 hour concert in St Nicholas Church featuring Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker (BBC Folk Award best duo 2015) and the children’s carnival parade at 1.30. We trust this will put us in a light mood for the frazzling A12, M25 & M3 journey westwards to Frome tomorrow afternoon. With Glastonbury on this weekend, we can guarantee two things, the traffic will be dire and it’s going to rain – rephrase that, pour with rain!

More next week…..

Dinner on board

Water feature in Lowestoft – children and quite a few adults spend all day running through it and getting soaked, brilliant!

Distant Drum & Boris the Morris say hello – Taken when we were painting the hull with anti foul

Thames barges, Hydrogen and Thistle, arrive in Harwich

The Avon rib

Orford Ness weapons testing base from the North Sea

We got down to Harwich and had an eventful weekend, catching up with old and new pals, and a few adventures besides.

Last Friday morning, Clive’s birthday, the generator went on the blink. A freezer load of food dictated that we get it sorted as soon as possible. The guts of the boat were duly ripped apart, I’ll rephrase… taken apart gracefully with all pieces carefully placed where we would remember where they go. Finally the generator cover comes off after much yanking and shunting. It took another 20 minutes to find the starter motor, then to find something solid, long and thin that could reach that far, and hit the other end of this with a hammer a few times, to no avail.

Clive called in Phil Cuthbert, Harwich engineer superman, who cut short his sailing to spin over to Ha’penny Pier. After clambering aboard, it took him 3 seconds to locate the offending earth wire, where the horseshoe end had come adrift of the starter motor. Hurrah! An hour and a half later after careful reassembly (where’s that bolt go? What’s this bit? Should this be here?) we were back to normal, showered and ready for the birthday dinner at Thai up at the Quay, followed by a lovely walk along the beach, finishing off in The New Bell Inn.

The following morning we had coffee, tea, pastries and macaroons with a few of our neighbours aboard, and an old pal Fiona came up for the weekend. Then lo and behold the generator packed in once more. This time it was the sea water which stopped getting to the pump. Seaweed up the pipes removed, however the damage was done as we had run the pump dry. These pumps aboard these boats have things called Impellers, and we have a box full of spares. Realising that once more we’d have to dismantle the interior of the boat, remove the pump, replace the impeller and refit all over again, which takes about 6 hours, we called it a day and sailed to Levington at the mouth of the Orwell River, where we could plug into the mains to keep the freezer frozen and recharge all the batteries, including our own.

By Monday evening we were exhausted from the constant repairs and ready to chill down, planning to get back on the River Stour the next day. Our good friends Chris & Libby Mannion were at Levington, Chis staying most of the week, however on Tuesday the wind blew a cold hoolie through the marina and we decided to hunker down. This was just as well…

Clive’s sister called him on Monday as his mum was in hospital with suspected pneumonia, and she was doing fine. Tuesday lunch they spoke and Florence was in good form, responding well to the drugs and eating her lunch. I went with Chris to the Ship Inn in Levington village for dinner and Clive was going to meet us later after having a snooze, however he turned up on his bicycle about half an hour later, very upset, as his mum had died suddenly at about 7pm.

So now Distant Drum is in Harwich again, on a beautiful hot day, too hot for painting inside the doghouse (aka cockpit), which I rather stupidly decided was a good idea to do, instead of sunbathing.

I am making sure everything ticks over aboard, terrified that the generator is going to pack up again, or a north westerly wind is going to suddenly veer down the Stour, obliging me to get off the Quay alone (not an easy thing to do) whilst Clive has driven to Somerset to meet up with his siblings and plunge into the inescapable emotional and administrative necessities that go with death. He has by far the worse task.

Rain is apparently on its way and I need to go up top and put the cockpit cover on, a hard task as our old one has been steadily falling to pieces over the last two years and we’ve just commissioned a new one from Steve Curle, aka Curly, the Harwich boat covers superman (he reads this so I have to say nice things….) This was fitted last night and is a complete bastard to clip in for the first few days. Trouble is if I ring him to come & help, he’ll answer pretending to be foreign….

It’s a lovely evening and I just watched the ferry Stena Hollandica motor past, arriving from Hoek van Holland. It reminded me of when I travelled round the world from 1990 to 1993, when I was so able to sit back and relax, and appreciate the moment, absorbing what I saw and heard, and appreciating it all. Too many intervening years working in a seriously stressed state, constant pressure and sleepless nights, waking up with my mind racing. I would find myself keeping a notebook by the bed so I could write the worries, ideas and lists down as they woke me, then I’d seek something else to take my mind away from the anguish, in the form of puzzles or books, which of course would wake me right up. It’s been over two busy years since I finished my job, yet I still haven’t got out of the habit of feeling I have to fill my mind constantly. I am however a whole lot more unstrung and know that we’re both so lucky, we’re good apart and we’re even better together, and we’re going to be just fine, even in the most scary moments.

The rain has now started and it’s pissing it down, so I’m signing off sitting in the doghouse admiring the new cover, waiting for the stiches to expand and cut out any leaking. It’s lovely and light with big windows and the view is grey and still beautiful.

Until next week – where will we be? Probably still in Harwich!!!

Distant Drum at Harwich

XXX