Page 16 - Yachter Spring/Summer 2022

16 CRUISING REPORTS
the inflatable floor had melted in the heat, requiring an overnight repair.
Carrying on up the river, it becomes
the Alde, and meanders past the Cobra
Mist building, where attempts were made
at Over the Horizon radar and the site subsequently used by the BBC and later, Radio Caroline. There are visitors buoys
off Slaughden Quay at Aldeburgh, near a clover leaf shaped Martello Tower and the AldeburghYC launch is available to ferry sailors ashore. Aldeburgh, a characterful town with its shingly beach, is home to a number of beach company lookouts and quite an artistic community.We’d planned to stay longer, but had a battery charging issue and opted to head back to Woolverstone where we reckoned we could get assistance, with another early start to get us back down to the Bar before high water.
Carl, from the local Beta agent found a chafed charging lead, behind the alternator, which was down to the last few strands, and had ben causing our erratic and unreliable charging.After he re-terminated it,we were relieved to find it fully functioning once more.
We headed back up to Ipswich for another forecast wet and windy weekend, and took the opportunity to visit Sutton Hoo, which was fascinating – it must have been quite a feat to haul the Saxon ship
up the hill to then bury it, probably the burial of King Raedwald, ruler of East Anglia in the early 7th Century. Many of the photographs taken in 1939, during the major excavations have just resurfaced and been digitised and are now available to view at Sutton Hoo.
Sailing back down the Orwell and out to sea once more, we again headed north,
but this time just as far as the Deben.As for the Ore, there is a potentially shifting bar to cross, but good information is available from http://www.debenestuarypilot.co.uk/ and the East Coast Pilot.The entrance passes between the villages of Felixstowe ferry and Bawdsey, another key site in the development of radar and one of the first chain home radar sites. In Ipswich, we
had been advised by a neighbouring local boat to ring George at Ramsholt for a free mooring, and sure enough, he offered us a suitable buoy which was both available and at no charge. We carried on up the Deben, to the Tidemill marina at Woodbridge, knowing that we needed to time our passage to arrive near high water (and avoid neaps). We stayed a few days whilst some very wet and windy weather passed through, with
our keel happily settling into the silt at low water.This time allowed us to meet
up with friends we had first met
when berthed outboard of us in
Port en Bessin in 2009 and to start passage planning for the journey home.
We sailed via Ramsholt back to Woolverstone for fuel, past another R41, Tabitha. The fuel proved useful, as
it was another light airs crossing of the Thames Estuary the next day,
to Ramsgate, where
we berthed near
R32 Syntonic.The
tides don’t work
as favourably
heading to
the west, so
we took a
Sutton Hoo Sculpture
short hop the following afternoon to Dover, with a pleasant sail down the Gull Stream, and then a short time holding north of the eastern entrance before the efficient Dover VTS authorised us to enter harbour, between
ferries.As we headed towards Granville Dock, we were advised to watch out for a
Border Force cutter transferring people ashore around the next breakwater and
also saw one of the smaller Border Force ribs towing a number of empty
small rubber boats. Many discarded rubber boats of varying sizes were
rafted up in the corner of Granville dock and lifted out and loaded
into a lorry the next day. A couple of small ribs had French
registrations, one only about the size of our tender and
a number of larger rubber boats appeared verily
shoddily made, with water pouring out of them
as they were lifted – a sobering site. Round
Gaff Cutter on the Deben