Time to go home

The 7am forecast still said F6-F8 for the morning so we abandoned the idea of catching the morning tide to West Mersea.

I could get a bus and train home and get to work on time for Tuesday or we could try and push the tide or go in the evening and have a very short night.

I managed to get online on the Shotley Wifi with Alison's netbook and check my diary - Tuesday was clear so I sent an email to work saying I'd be a day late.

I'd been worried about the VHF - we hadn't been hearing the Walton MSI broadcasts or Transcur's Sunday briefing so I called Thames Coastguard for a radio check. They could only hear us on high power so I'm sure there is a break in the cable to the antenna. Another thing to go on the list.

We mooched around and had a chat with Neil by his just launched Oysterman 16 - a very nice little boat - and then had lunch at the Bristol Arms.

We finally took the time to go around the Ganges museum. The establishment was huge in its day.

By mid afternoon the wind had dropped and the sun was shining from a clear blue sky. Tuesdays forecast was for almost no wind so we decided to go with the evening tide after all. We had an hour's doze then got fuel and went to lock out. I messed up completely while docking and dropped the aft mooring line, got it stuck round the prop and jammed the gear lever in forward.

The lock keeper walked us round to the working dock where we were found by Keith and Julie from Maryl. They hung around and provided really great moral support while I went into the water wearing my mask and snorkel and freed the prop but we couldn't shift the gear lever. We're really green with marine diesels and I wanted the yard to take a look so we stayed on the working dock overnight.