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.