Harwich – tide by tide

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.

June – East Coast nostalgia

We are now pottering happily around the Essex and Suffolk coasts, visiting places we got to know well years ago when we kept our various boats here.

From our rented mooring at Woolverstone on the River Orwell, we went down to the River Colne, spending a night in the Pyefleet, one of the best known East Coast anchorages, just behind Mersea Island. We picked up a mooring buoy rather than having to spend half an hour getting glutinous mud off the anchor next day – worth the £10 we paid to the man from the oyster fishery, who came round on a paddleboard collecting money from yachts.