Brightlingsea

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.

We motored until North Foreland on the southern end of the estuary where we were able to set sails and sail the whole rest of the way. The estuary is full of wrecks and the sands and fairways have ominous names like Sunk, Black Deep, Knock, Sledway, Shipwash, Spitway. If I didn’t want to add another 20 miles to my 52 mile trip I would have to cross two of the sands where there are no buoyed fairways. The sands change position all the time of course so my charts would be somewhat worthless. But I had luckily found a 2024 survey with waypoints on the internet. It still felt a bit scary when the depth meter showed 20m and soon after 2,5m. But we made it across safely and arrived in Brightlingsea with enough water to cross the 1m drying sill into the harbour.
The next day Andrew came by in the morning and we had English breakfast in the cockpit and afterwards went for a walk. It was very good to meet him again.

This is a beautiful area with lots of wild nature and water all around and kids learning to sail and a foot ferry to go across to the other side of the Colne river. 
I had some things to do on the mast and check the rigg for the next passage. Afterwards I was really tired and went to bed early which reminded me that I probably still had a cold.
On Thursday I walked the 2km to the big Coop store to buy provisions for my North Sea crossing. On the way I met a black postman and like most of the people here he smiled and waved hello. He said: “You have a very nice dark tan, you can’t be from here”… I said: “Well thanks, but not as nice as your tan”. He laughed and said: “Well… give it another week or so”. I love this country.
After I got back I took the foot ferry over to the sandbar at Point Clear. Took a walk along the beach and took the ferry back. Then went for Fish & Chips and got ready for crossing the North Sea to Denmark tomorrow.