Cruises – Page 2 – tide by tide

Kirkwall, Skara Brae and Ness of Brodgar

Skara Brae, a fishing and farming village more than 5,000 years old, is a must on any visit to Orkney. The houses have stone furniture, and the winding paths between them were roofed. It can be reached easily from Kirkwall on an hourly local bus service.

Pentland Firth to Orkney

The next leg from Wick to Kirkwall in Orkney required careful preparation, because we needed to cross close to the Eastern end of the notorious Pentland Firth.

This has ferocious tides but, more seriously, is peppered with rocks and deep underwater reefs that create enormous turbulence. Ships, even the navy, are wary of the Firth. In some conditions it can be deadly for small craft.

*We crossed just to the east of the Pentland Skerries*

Peterhead to Wick

The 75 miles across the Moray Firth from Peterhead to Wick was a reminder of how long the North Sea has been a source of energy wealth. We passed close to a huge deep-water wind farm and near another big one under construction. Close by there was an old oilfield from 1980, called Beatrice, which was exhausted and shut down 7 years ago. Nearby Captain, a small field discovered in 1977, is still operating.

A *shaft of sun on the water, with a rainy Wick harbour in the di*stance.

Whitby to Peterhead

After leaving Whitby, we had more light winds on the Yorkshire and Northumberland coasts as far as Amble in Northumberland. However, we arrived just before the first strong winds of the cruise – too strong, in fact, because they kept us there several days.

It was no penance, because the countryside is beautiful and we found plenty to do. Warkworth castle is well worth visiting, and there is a lovely coastal path to the seaside village of Alnmouth, with a frequent bus back to Amble.

Slowboat Round Britain – Orwell to Whitby

Light winds again, just like our passage up the Channel. In the last couple of days, we’ve probably beaten all our past records for motor sailing.

We left Woolverstone, passed Pin Mill in a calm and headed down the Orwell, finding wind eventually for about half the first leg. It was a bright and sunny 40 miles from Harwich to Lowestoft along the low-lying but beautiful Suffolk coast. With a near-spring tide carrying us along, Spring Fever reached 9 knots over the ground at times as we passed Aldeburgh and Southwold.

Slowboat round Britain – off we go

Some people race non-stop round Britain. Others sail 2,000 miles in a frantic six weeks cruise over one summer. We left Cowes a few days ago and won’t be back before autumn 2025. With so much to see, what’s the point of rushing?

Ready to go

Spring Fever has had the topsides polished, the bottom antifouled, the engine serviced and an overhaul of the electronics. She hasn’t looked as smart for quite a while.

Lazy sailing for oldies

Tiredness is dangerous at sea, and it creeps up faster as we grow older, so we need to think hard about how best to avoid it. Having good equipment is obviously vital, but top of my list of priorities is not hardware but changing our attitude to the challenges of weather and sea. We must take the lazy option, and stay where we are if it looks too much like hard work out there.

Rowing the Venetian way

A visit to Venice brought the chance to learn the basics of rowing all over again. We found there’s almost no relationship between how a Venetian rows and the way we learnt at home.

Oldie plans

And following up my last post, here’s what we’ve been thinking about for next year’s cruise: a third round-the-British-Isles voyage, at an even more leisurely pace than before, giving time to explore places we missed and revisit some of the most memorable.

*Spring Fever at dusk in Loch Moidart, 2*012

Oldie sailors

Just realised with a bit of a shock that at the weekend I will be the same age as Spring Fever’s last proprietor when he gave up sailing because he was getting on a bit, and sold the boat to us.

…and back again

We grabbed a brief window of good weather to take Spring Fever back from Suffolk to Cowes. Crossing the Thames Estuary, we retraced our route out, including Foulger’s Gatt, which runs across the London Array windfarm.

After stopping in Ramsgate for the night, we went through the Gull Stream, inshore of the Goodwin Sands. Two Border Force vessels followed us – they had spent a long night finding and rescuing migrants from small boats.

Follow the wind

After leaving the boat in Cowes for a few days for the force sevens to blow over (see previous post) we returned still undecided about where to go: south to the Channel Islands and down to St Malo? But it’s already the French holiday season, the English one is starting and there’ll be packed moorings and marinas everywhere, plus the new customs and immigration bureaucracy.

Furthermore, it looks from the forecast as if the first three days after arriving will be spent sheltering somewhere. After that we’ll be worrying about finding a weather window to get back to Cowes a few days later.

The answer, we decided, was to follow the wind east and head for the Thames Estuary and Suffolk.

Aimless cruising

Mike Peyton’s annual cruise with his club had a simple policy: don’t discuss where to go, don’t collaborate on planning and all set off about the same time. It seems that at the dictate of wind and tides, the club members would invariably end up in the same place anyway.

I can understand how that happens, after 10 days of this July’s weather. If you are a cruising sailor of a certain age who does not want to exhaust yourself and your crew to windward, the options for where to go narrow right down as soon as you check tides and wind.

*Dartmouth entrance in better weather, last time we visited*

Transadriatica 2023

It was one of the best Transadriatica’s from Venice to Novigrad and back that anyone could remember. Winds in the northern Adriatic are notoriously fickle and changeable, and sometimes disappear for hours to leave a glassy calm. This time, apart from a brief lull or two on the way out, we had steady winds all the way.

Martin and I were sailing two-handed in his Spiuma, starting on Thursday evening in Venice and arriving in Novigrad early on Friday afternoon.