Sleighride down the Sledway

So... 111.3 miles in 21 hours, about eight or nine of them sailing properly. Flat seas, light winds and a blooming Dutch boat in our berth when we got home. If we'd wondered where all the Dutch boats had gone as we squeezed into their marinas, we found the answer - they are all on the Orwell. It was really strange to see boats from Enkhuizen, Medemblik, Volendam and Lelystad filling up Suffolk Yacht Harbour - when we were in those places we hardly saw a British boat.

The really infuriating thing is that Helen's funeral was eventually fixed for next Monday and has now been postponed again, so we could have stayed an extra few days. Still, the weather was pretty good for a crossing and there's a possibility of fog over the next few days, which is almost worse than wind. We had warm air, almost a full moon, and Ben stood a watch on his own for the first time. The best bit for me was the last leg from North Shipwash down the Sledway, when Sam and Ben were both asleep exhausted, the wind gave a us a beam reach (I'd feared we might be motoring into the wind), the tide turned at the right moment and we galloped along at 7.5 knots for a couple of hours. The sun even came out.

Anyway, too tired to write more... must get some sleep (1.5 hours last night). England is full of annoying little flies, which arrived on the boat halfway across the North Sea, and combine harvester noises.

Sadly heading home

Last week Sam's cousin Helen complained of a headache and went to hospital. She was diagnosed with a brain tumour and died over the weekend. So we're returning home with all speed so that, hopefully, Sam can get to the funeral which will be in Guernsey where Helen lived.

Slight change of plan therefore, as when we heard we had just reached Dordrecht which ironically was our furthest point from the sea. After the Amsterdam night convoy we were a bit weary and decided to spend Saturday at a very pleasant marina on the Brassemermeer - we arrived about 10.30am and felt like wimps beside the Dutch people who were planning to carry on south all day. However we made up for it on Sunday when we made part of a new convoy of yachts heading south on the standing mast route, missed the rail bridge at Gouda by about three minutes and someone in the group persuaded them to make an extra opening, just for us. So we pressed on through numerous bridges and reached Dordrecht around 6pm.

Not a good arrival, although it's a delightful little harbour we last visited five years ago in Magewind. We managed to hit our neighbour's boat with our anchor as we arrived, chipping their expensive gelcoat. The Lavac failed entirely, leaving us with a blocked loo and no onboard facilities. And then Sam got the news about Helen.

Today we did a non-stop run through the Delta to Colijnsplaat, whence we hope to depart tomorrow for the UK - so far, the forecast looks pretty good. Non-stop... except for the immensely slow locks on either side of the Volkerak lake. Our neighbour in Dordrecht suggested we should leave from Stellendam instead, as it would save about four hours on the passage, and I'm sure he was right, but I have no information about North Sea passages from Stellendam which takes you straight into the inshore traffic zone and then to the dreaded Noord Hinder traffic scheme. So we went with the devil we know and headed for Colijnsplaat.

Merry Christmas from just me

Video of photos made for Sam's funeral    Dear friends and family As I hope you all know, this year has been a difficult one for me. On ...