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I had been sweating terribly all through the night. I wasn’t feeling very bad but definitely not good but I decided to go ahead anyway. I was guided to the eastern entrance by Dover Port Control over the radio and then motored along the cliffs into the sunrise which was beautiful.
There was still a bit of a wave outside and the wind was blowing force 5. Since we had the waves on the beam it was a bit uncomfortable but soon got better as wind and waves diminished towards sunset. We went past Brighton and Beachy Head. Then it it became dark but the moon came out. It was a lovely sail. I had expected having to motor for at least the second half of the night but we were able to sail all the way to the western entrance of Dover harbour.
I am beginning to believe that the weather is trying to make fun of me. Friday had been a great sunny day with no clouds. I wasn’t even out of the harbour when it began to get dark, foggy and rainy. We had to motor against the wind but with the tide out of the Goulet de Brest but were going to have a nice wind on the beam when we turned the corner and sailed the Chenal du Four between Ushant and the coast. Of course it didn’t turn out that way. What we did have was no wind and fog that was so thick and moist that it felt like rain.
I had a very short weather window the following morning. I needed to be at the entrance to the river Arun as close to high tide as possible. And I wanted the morning high tide, not the evening one because then there would already be too much wind again.
That meant getting up at 2:30 a.m. and casting off at 3:30. And … you guessed it…. Going against tide and wind.
The waves were still up and it was soon clear that sailing was no option. I would never make it in time. But motoring turned out not to work either. So we were tacking our way against the weather and the tide with sail and motor and were very much delayed at first but fortunately the waves diminished and we were able to go in a straight line.
On Monday I found an unexpected weather window. If I were to leave Monday night and then go as far as possible until the weather turned to shit again sometime Wednesday afternoon. I was hoping to get as far as Brighton but Dover would be a possibility, too.
I was particularly anxious about crossing the Thames estuary behind the TSS and I had a time window where I would need to be at the mouth of the river Blackwater at a certain time to cross the estuary with the tide (or most of it anyway) in my favour. That meant leaving Lowestoft against the tide but at least with the wind from behind. Because of the wind over tide situation there was a very nasty wave but we gut used to it and were barreling along with a poled out genoa with 5 sometimes 6 knots through the water. Unfortunately with the tide against us we were only doing 3 to 3.5 over the ground. But we made it to the Blackwater in time around 3 a.m.
I had wanted a weather window like the one when I had sailed to Scotland with winds from the east, a blocking high reaching across Ireland and pretty much nothing to worry about weatherwise.
It was not to be. The best I could come up with included leaving Tuesday afternoon after the storm had just abated but nasty waves were still to be expected. Then being hit by a cold front on Wednesday to Thursday night and getting into harbour on Saturday as early as possible because of another low creeping up the channel and making for nasty weather.
