To Dover, Dover, Eastbourne and Brighton

We ended up staying at our anchorage in the Medway until Thursday 8th August.  We got a lot of good work done on Firebird and there was still plenty more to do, but we

A neighbour in our lovely calm, peaceful anchorage off the Medway

were keen to make progress, so set sail for Dover, bright and early in the morning...except that we didn't actually get to set many sails.  We had about an hour of useful wind before it died away and we had to motor almost all the way.

We managed to navigate our way through the Thames Estuary without problem, avoiding both the large ships coming and going from the Port of London and the constantly shifting sand banks in the area.

What are these strange things in the Thames Estuary?  It looks like Water World has come true

It was a 13.5 hour journey, so by the time we had clearance to enter Dover, slipping in between the cross channel ferries, and had dropped our anchor, we were very tired.

Mandatory white cliffs of Dover photo

Following Dover, we went to Dover.  No, not a typo, we left Dover's West entrance in the morning, but the wind was completely against us and the sea state was very rough, so we gave up trying to make our way through such unpleasant conditions, turned round and went to the East entrance to spend another night in the same place.

On the 10th, we left Dover for good this time and sailed to Eastbourne.  This was actual sailing, which is much nicer than motoring and best of all, free!

The winds slowly built during the day.  We had a good spell with a lovely force 4, but by the late afternoon, we were cooking on a force 7, flying our smallest headsail and with the main reefed right down.  Seeing as we were beating dead into it, this made for a very uncomfortable sail.

Master and commander of the vessel doing...not a lot, as he rightly should be

When we got to Eastbourne, we checked out an anchorage which was far too rough given the weather, so we went to Sovereign Harbour instead, arriving 15.5 hours after leaving Dover.  On the way, Kate almost caught a tasty looking mackerel.  It was right there, within frying pan range, but managed to jump free just as Kate was about to land it.  Lucky fish!

Kate doing a spot of fishing

The entrance to Sovereign Harbour is through a slightly treacherous channel.  As we approached, I spotted a wreck on the outer breakwater, which was strange, as I hadn't seen it on the chart and it looked very fresh.  As we got closer, it turned out to be a yacht that we had been sailing with all day from Dover.  Our paths had been continually crossing as we tacked back and forth and those poor guys hadn't made good on their approach to the harbour.

Luckily for them, they had a long keeled boat, which can take to the mud reasonably well (unlike Firebird with her fin keel) and the tide was rising, so by the time we were moored up, we heard on the radio that they had managed to pull themselves off the mud and were making their way to the harbour.

Eastbourne was the first place we had been ashore onto dry land since leaving London 6 days earlier and we both felt slightly sick as it didn't feel normal to be sitting so still. 

Finding a place for the new batteries

We stayed in Eastbourne for 5 days, doing more work installing equipment on Firebird.  Amongst other things, we built a box for two of our awesome new batteries and converted a locker into a storage area for the other two.  Unfortunately, the new batteries are too large to fit in the engine bay where the old one went.  Kate was not best pleased when she saw the size of these beasts when they got delivered to us in Limehouse Marina in London.  They total 450AH capacity and weigh a ton.  I have had to be creative in explaining why we need four huge leisure batteries to replace the one modest 70AH one we had before, but I think I have just about managed to sway her over.

A lovely visit from Mum at Eastbourne

We also got a visit from Mum Mitchell, who dropped off post that had arrived after we had left London (mainly fishing tackle ordered of eBay), as well as lots of fruit and veg from the garden to keep scurvy at bay.

We set off from Eastbourne at 05:00 on Thur 15th, hoping to sail for roughly 36 hours direct to Weymouth.  After only 5.5 hours, though, as we approached Brighton, we decided that we had both had enough of the rough conditions and stopped there instead.  We had once again been beating into force 6 winds, which were whipping up a choppy sea and throwing us all over the place.  It wouldn't be so bad if we were able to rest, but at present, while under way, our bed and the seats around our table are taken up with equipment that still needs to be installed, which means that we have to spend the whole time in the cockpit getting buffeted by the elements.  Once we have got more stuff installed, which requires finding a welder, we will be able to take it in turn to rest properly while on passage.

So here we are, safely moored up in Brighton, drinking coffee and using the free WiFi at Wetherspoons to research welders and the weather for the coming week.  It looks like we might get a break from these Westerly winds, which would be great!

Firebird flying in the wind