Leaving Wells-next-the-Sea

I love Wells-next-the-Sea. We were made very welcome by the harbour staff and felt much more part of the place having arrived by sea than otherwise, but I'm not sure I would want to sail in again. Coming in on Monday evening was quite hairy. We were rolling all over the place, and it was even worse coming out at 6am on Wednesday morning. The wind was light, but mostly northerly, and the seas were very short and steep, breaking on both sides of the entrance channel. Very uncomfortable. I helmed as Julian was feeling a bit hung over after yesterday's wine (it's normally me!). 

The seas stayed steeper than Robinetta handles well for another hour and we could not sail as we were heading directly into the wind. Julian started the navigation by programming in a course to South Dowsing, almost due north from Wells. The seas got little better and I asked him to re-set the course to take us through the deep water Race Channel. Things eased up after that. 

By 11 there was enough wind to sail, so we turned the engine off for an hour and a half to sail while we had lunch. Blessed relief! The engine went on again at 1300, and the man came down about1730 as it was doing nothing.

The auto-pilot earned its keep today. Julian fitted it about 1330 and it kept the course more reliably than a human could in the conditions.

After lunch I tried to nap, then looked at the Humber navigation and passage planned it. I set it up on the chart plotter, which gave an arrival time of 2030, just on the far edge of the 2hr either side of high water for free flow at Grimsby dock. BUT our chart plotter is set to UTC and real life is in BST, so we would be an hour late. We read up the pilot, which said that the lock might open up to HW +_4 for a charge of £10.

I also looked at the anchorage under Spurn Head. It would be a sensible place to stop, but we did need diesel, having only put in 5lts at Lowestoft and none in Wells, so we decided on Grimsby.

The Humber estuary is quite busy with shipping, and we saw oil tankers, cross North Sea ferries, small container ships, a cruise ship...but no pleasure yachts except us (and a couple of none-commercial fishing boats). We also saw the Tetbury Monobuoy, a strange structure with a floating boom that I noticed as we motored past, luckily on the side away from it! It seemed to have a strange attraction for the auto-pilot, however many extra degrees to starboard I programmed in it persisted in staying on the nose! I ended up disconnecting the auto, and hand steering the rest of the way.

 

Our next sea mark was the Bull Sand Fort, a second world war structure, not nearly as picturesque as the Napoleonic forts guarding the Solent.

 

The sun set as we approached Grimsby, but with a full moon and clear skies we could still see quite well as e entered the fish dock. I had called ahead and been assured that the Fish Dock Island lock that we needed to get through to moor up was manned 24 hours, and would be available for us, and it was.

The lock is short but wide and deep; Robinetta fitted quite snugly for length with her bowsprit in. The lock keeper threw lines down to us and chatted as we rose. Turns out the lock can be used at all states of the tide. If I'd known that before I'd not have worried! I was absolutely shattered by the time we were moored up in the Grimsby Yacht Club.