Heading North

Getting a boat ready for a cruise is a complicated process, whereby lots of different things -everything from insurance to antifouling paint - all have to come together at once to make a ship seaworthy. You can always worry about the vital things that might have been forgotten.

On Calismarde Geoff has got a very impressive crew, Steve and Tony both very experienced sailors. I have Dave Patuck so we are ready to tackle almost anything.

Unfortunately today bought a brisk northerly wind. Northerly winds seem to be much more common now, perhaps as a result of climate change. It used to be said that the winds blew SW 3 days out of 4, but we have had northerly winds for weeks. However we wanted to make progress, and you can't assemble an all-weather crew and loads of stores and then just stay in port. So we left our moorings at 5am and had a slightly tedious sail, against head winds all the way, eventually coming to rest in Brightlingsea.

The picture shows Bonita and Calismarde alongside the pontoon at Brightlingsea as their crews prepare to go ashore to sample the best the yacht club restaurant can offer.

Tomorrow offers the difficult choice of staying here hoping for better weather, or pressing on anyway.