Back to Tollesbury

After looking at the tides we decided to leave Burnham around 8 am to head home. Many of the OGA boats had further to go, being based up the Wallet, so set off much earlier, and some based in the Blackwater decided to take the Raysand channel rather than the Spitway, so were leaving later.

The wind direction looked good for sailing once we were in the Blackwater, so we decided to make for the Spitway. I thought we would be motoring down the Crouch and had planned my timings accordingly, but Julian has the sails up and the engine off while we were still in the middle of the Burnham moorings! We did manage to sail for a couple of hours, while the tide was with us, but by the time we reached the Outer Crouch buoy (no2) at 09:50 the tide was against us and with the light winds were were hardly making anything as we tacked.

Motor sailing brought us within a cable of the Swin Spitway buoy by noon, and I began to cut across the sands on the Buxey side, watching the depth gauge carefully. We never had less than 3m beneath us and on this heading we could reach, so I soon turned the engine off.

We had a gorgeous sail across the Spitway and into the Blackwater, only dropping the main sail once we were at the entrance to Woodrolfe Creek. Even then we did not turn the engine on, but headed up Woodrolfe on the tide, using the staysail to give us steerage way. We wanted fuel (the first of the year) and sailed all the way into the marina. Once there we did need the engine for maneuvering!

Having been away for over 3 weeks we were very pleasantly surprised to only need 15.3 litres to refill the tanks. This shows the difference between local cruising without an agenda and an occasional race, and cruising with a purpose as we had been doing for the previous 5 years.

By 15:05 we were back on our berth in the Saltings, after a lovely holiday.