Up the Wallet

We meant to go to Robinetta last night, but it was dark, and raining, by the time we were ready, so we slept at home instead. We were out of the house at 0600 in daylight with no rain, and the tide was right to let us float Worm off the slipway which is much easier than using the pontoon.

Julian stuck a couple of small patches on the damaged main sail, then we were off the mooring by 0815. I made bacon sandwiches for breakfast under way, a real boat breakfast! We reached Bench head by 0935, and had a rather uncomfortable run past Colne Bar and North Eagle, but we were very broad reaching before Clacton, and had a fast trip, to round the Naze by 1235.

After our breakfast under way we decided to stop off at Harwich Halfpenny pier for a late lunch at 1430. We dropped sail just outside the pontoon, then motored in and rafted up along side Charm (the Walton one). We had a nice lunch of Bagels and smoked salmon, sharing a bottle of Cava with Charm's owner. He was on his way to Wrabness for the rally too, but waiting for Charm's co-owner to arrive from work.

We left Harwich at 1610, then sailed close hauled up the Stour to Wrabness. We found an empty mooring nice and close the the beach hut and were on it by 1800. Mike motored by in Lillibulero about half an hour later, and asked us to move because he thought we were on the mooring he was supposed to use as committee boat, but he called over almost immediately to say he'd found the real one, so we stayed put.

It was lovely evening, cool for the time of year, but dry and bright. We were lulled into a false sense of security and did not put the covers on. Big mistake when it started raining in the night!