Bob leaves the Pyefleet
A quick preview of James’s amazing drone footage with some very cheap music.
Day 1 We had an exhilarating sail up to Harwich – perfect South Westerlies off shore. James and Rue are the original Sea Geezers who have seen this plan develop from the beginning. A lot of footage of Captain Calamity was shot… Don’t get the wrong impression – I know exactly what I’m doing…
We pelted up the coast with the tide in glorious sunshine. Despite having to moor-up on the outside of Half-Penny Pier, we had a good night with the usual excellent dinner and salty atmosphere at the Almo Inn.
Day 2 we sailed up to the Orford Bar. 2 years ago, with Katie, I remember turning the engine off, taking all sails down and timidly motoring in. But the wind was set perfectly for all likely turning points, so we just went for it under-sail. I think we might have had the engine on in the background. The depth never dropped below 7 metres and we entered the calm of the River Ore in triumphant mood. In fact, the ease with which we crossed the bar may have contributed to my dangerous complacency attempting to leave the river two weeks later
I can’t remember too much about our progress up river. I think we were all pretty pleased with ourselves. We de-sailed as we passed carefully through Orford and used the last of the flood to take us up towards Aldeburgh and the pub… In any case, the dire warnings we had had from James’s mum were a source of kindly amusement as we handed the tiller to Rue, turned the music up, and decided to make tea. “Just keep to the center of the river” I murmured good-naturedly, as I disappeared below. With just the lightest of cross winds, no sails up, and the motor chugging away contentedly, nothing could go wrong.
“Er Crispin, I think we’ve run aground…”
WHAT??? I rushed up… sure enough, we were mere metres from the down wind bank and – horribly, horribly – motionless! Maths and self-hatred cascaded into my brain… Aground! At the top of the tide! miles from Aldeburgh and Orford! What had we done!? This is really bad!!! I had visions of Bob lying on her side, us marooned on the wasteland of Orford Ness… Instead of the pub, we’d be shivering and miserable and possibly unable to free the boat even the following day… ARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!! The whole round Britain trip was in jeopardy! And we’d barely started! I knew that I alone was to blame for this – Rue had been steering, as commanded, towards the center of the river, but the cross breeze, like a silent siren, had drawn Bob astray and into the shallows… I tried the usual desperate acts of the grounded sailor – I rammed the throttle forward… nothing…. rammed it backwards… not an iota of movement… James was calmer and started pumping the dinghy with the idea of using a kedge anchor to pull us off. I looked over the side and could see that the water was still just coming in – we had about ten minutes before things would get radically worse. In vain, I tried leaning out on the stays to tilt us…
And then an idea suddenly plopped into my head – it occurred to me that the same cross-wind that had pushed us into trouble might help tip us out. I pulled the main up as far as I could. Then returned to the cockpit and pulled the full genoa out tightly. Almost at once, Bob leant gracefully over and, by god, we were moving – almost imperceptibly at first, but increasingly obviously and then suddenly we were chugging up river again as though we’d never been stuck. The relief was huge. We slapped ourselves on the back and would have wept for joy had we not been made of stronger stuff.
The rest of this stage was pretty much without incident. The new-to-me Suzuki Outboard was a big let-down… (I took it home after this stage and swapped it with Old Trusty…) We had a guided tour of Aldeburgh’s pubs with James and a friendly gent managed to accidentally pour a full pint onto Rue’s package.
Day 3 We left Bob on a mooring at Orford and took a taxi back to the Pyefleet.
Bob’s Odyssey had begun!
Bob's Big Adventure 