Ramsgate to Shotley Marina, Harwich - 17th May

1.5 Ramsgate to Harwich – 17^th May

With keen crew, Ian Sumnall on board it was an early rise and departure at 0730 from Ramsgate.  I called harbour control after leaving the berth and headed out to sea after crossing the entrance channel.  North Foreland light house was visible on the shore.  North Foreland marks then end and start of two weather forecast areas North Foreland to Selsey Bill and Gibraltar Point to North Foreland. 

The Thames Estuary is an interesting place to sail, lots of sand banks, shipping and wind farms!

I had planned a number of options for this trip, outside everything, through a route in the sandbanks called Fisherman’s Gat or through a gap in the sandbank and the London Array Windfarm called Foulers Gat.  The weather was calm and with Ian on board it seemed like an opportunity to try the more challenging and interesting route through the London Aaray. 

 
The turbine’s  are so large they mess with your perspective of things.  Event seven miles away they looked closer and a ship at anchor in front of the array blocked sight of the fairway buoy that marked the entrance through the turbines.

Eventually when about ½ mile from the turbines it was possible to spot the entrance marked by a single red and white fairway buoy.  It is not altogether obvious what route to follow until you are actually in the first row of turbines.  There is also limited information on the current paper and electronic charts so I had done quite a bit of internet research before setting sail which included the latitude and longitude of some of the key turbines which marked the boundary of our route through. 

 

 

 

They really are huge and a great spectacle up close particularly when all the turbine’s line up in long rows with their blades slowly turning.

Eventually after about half an hour we made our way through the array and entered Deep Black and north east, south west running channel.  Towards the end of Deep Black the wind finally began to fill in in and the day was ended with a great sail in towards Harwich via the shallow Medusa channel before taking down the sails and motoring up the recommended yacht channel towards Shotley Marina. 

The cranes and ships moored in Felixtow make an impressive site as you enter the Orwell

After negotiating the lock we arrived safely in Shotley Marina at 1610, a journey of nearly 9 hours covering 35 miles.    Very kindly a very helpful lock keeper put as in a easily negotiated berth.  He seemed to know the idiosyncrasies of Tradewinds!

It was great having Ian along for this part of the journey as he had spent some of his school years in the area and in fact his father had been involved in training new naval recruits at HMS Ganges just up the hill behind the marina.  Those of an age who watched Blue Peter the children’s programme may remember John Noakes climbing the mast in the middle of the parade ground.

After finding the onsite restaurant closed on a Tuesday evening and the Bristol Arms also shut we decided to take a bus into Shotley Gate to the Rose Pub for supper.  This proved to be an excellent trip down memory lane for Ian as the bar man had grown up in the area and new many of the people Ian knew at school and in the area. 

It was a rather long walk back to the marina so we decided it was a better bet to order and eat our meals rather quickly to allow us to catch the last bus back!