I've generally stopped bothering with a blog post on the final morning that invariably reads "got up, put boat on buoy, drove home" but we did have a little frisson of excitement when we picked up a lump of weed and an entire discarded crabbing line around the outboard prop several yards short of the pontoon
No great problem as the tide was ebbing and carried the dinghy to the spot I wanted to be anyway but in the conditions, had the tide been on the flood, it could have a been a bit of a nuisance to say the least.
We weren't exactly up and about early and we didn't exactly rush and thus we were slightly surprised to find it was gone eleven in the morning before we were on our way
And now to some thoughts and conclusions ...
The failure of the tiller pilot is a major annoyance. We're rather stuck without it (ideally we'd carry a spare, perhaps the faulty unit can be resurrected to perform that service) and we are agreed that there's little option but to spend the money on replacing it however that's going to mean putting several other projects on hold as money isn't exactly flowing freely right now
The grounding on the Foulness Sands was careless and bad seamanship on my part. Knowing the chain of events that led up to it doesn't make me feel any better about it. We got away with it and the chances are that even if we hadn't got off there and then we'd have just had an uncomfortable and embarrassing wait for the tide to return. The only concern would have been how rough the returning water would have been with wind over tide but I'd expect to have laid an anchor ready to kedge off into deeper water as soon as she lifted (if, indeed, we didn't have a tow on standby by that point)
Hindsight is a wonderful thing of course but several lessons have been learnt from that particular piece of stupidity - we could, for example, have hove to, I shoud have re-assessed the situation after having problems with the zip on my salopettes, and the depth alarm is set too shallow to be of much use (a symptom of my growing willingness, and probably over-confidence, to flirt with the shallows)
On the positive side, Jane is just beginning to feel a little more at home on deck. Helming isn't coming easily for her, she has problems seeing over the cabin (it's hopeless with the spray hood up and she can't sit and helm even with it down) and finds it hard to steer without a reference mark to aim at but it's coming together. It's just a question of practice, practice and more practice.
Despite the less than clement weather we had a fabulous ten days. Not least because of the wonderful company of the crew of Laurin. Cruising in company was something new to us and very much to our liking. I'm even getting used to eating pasta (only kidding Karen!).
It was a shame that we had to part company slighty abruptly at Tollesbury but the wise sailor accepts the dicats of the weather gods and goes when the going is good. It was definitely a wise decision too as sailing round to the Crouch from the Blackwater on Sunday would have been very rough indeed
Entertaining the crews of two other boats in our cockpit tent on Saturday night and the crew of Tomahawk in the cabin for a nightcap on Sunday night proved that Erbas has the space to be a sociable boat (indeed, even a party boat) which is one of the areas where we felt Brigantia was very restrictive. It's lovely to enjoy the hospitality extended by so many friends and even strangers, but it's nice to get the chance to return the compliment once in a while!
As for London, well we'll do it some day for sure. Travelling by train just wasn't the same and as somebody put it "there's nothing quite like arriving in a capital city in your own boat"
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