Falanda Sailing

We had been hoping to Leave Grimsby at around 10am on friday, however we didnt know you have to book in to the lock, and major maintenance was in progress, stopping us getting out. It was gone 4pm when we finally got locked through, and then spat out into the busy Humber. After another 3 hours, motoring against the tide, we reached the mouth of the estuary, where we were then greeted by a very confused sea.  With the swell coming from at least 3 different directions, the two boats were rolling violently, and just getting the main up proved to be a challenge, when the halyard got twisted around the spreaders. Soon enough it calmed down though, leavikng us with a flat sea, and unfortunitely no wind. We were still against the tide, and although relitively smooth, the swell, and power of the tide worked together to drag the crab pots 2 or 3 feet underwater. This makes spotting them even harder than normal, especially when it started to get get dark. At this point, my auto pilot broke, ...

After 2 days stuck here in Grimsby, we are finally hoping to get moving again by tomorrow morning. We are all moored at Grimsby and Cleethropes yacht club, who are very friendly, and have lots of water based activities for the kids here of an evening. Grimsby doesn't seem to be the most scenic place to be stopped, but we've walked around to see all the old falling down buildings and towers, which look super cool!  We've walked around all the marinas, and seen some really nice fiberglass boats - which arent just square caravans like most you see on the water.  The harbour masters have also been very friendly and we've made the most of our stay. The wind has been blowing from the North, the direction we are heading, which makes it very hard to make much progress. There aren't very many ports to stop at between here and Scottland, so theres not much point trying to steam on against the weather. Therefore, although very frustrating, I've decided to just stop and wai...

I'd never actually done a whole overnight trip completely singlehanded untill last night, and apart from the busy shipping and ferrys coming into the Humber, it was really nice! After a nice, dry, calm night, we left on Monday morning at about 2:45am with heavy rain, thick clowd coverage (no moon for light) and it was still pitch black. We strapped the boats together and used them as twin engines to manouvre out of our berth. This sounds really scary, but with one engine in astern (reverse) and the other ahead, its a very controlled turning methord, and worked brilliantly. Of course, as you leave the lights of the pontoon behind you, EVERYTHING is the same shade of black, making navigation even trickier. I was extremely thankfull to have a chartplotter, which can tell you that your actually looking at the wrong red buoy, or that you are infact aiming for a sand bank. I didn't have a chartplotter last year (or any other electronics) on my trip to ths Scillys, so the day I set ...

 45 miles today from Harwich, to Lowestoft, with sunshine and a light breeze running with us. The Royal Norfolk and Suffolk yacht club have given us berths for the night (most of it anyway!) and some people from the neighbouring boats kindly took my ropes as I came in.  We shall be leaving Lowestoft tomorrow morning at around 2.30 /3am, to catch the tide at the start of our trip to Grimsby. Grimsby is aproximately 100 miles away, so we will be sailing all through tomorrow night as well, before hopefully arriving by tuesday morning! Im a bit nervous about leaving tomorrow morning, as it will still be dark, and I will have to manouver out of my berth without hitting the boats infront or behind me. I will then have to concentrate for at least 24 hours, before we call port controll at the enterance to Grimsby.  Poor dad will have to do the same trip, on his own, and he is definitely not looking forward to the early start!  There looks to be a northerly blow coming throug...