Sprung is Spring (Days 5 & 6)

Sunday dawned relatively bright and breezy when we finally surfaced. We'd already rejected the possibility of leaving early enough in the morning to make it over the Rays'n as it would have meant leaving well before dawn. On top of the inevitable heavy evening and late night that simply wasn't on.

That left us with Plan B which was to leave as soon after low water as possible and return to the Crouch via the Spitway. Bradwell used to be a virtually all tide marina for us but the entrance is now so shallow that it's little better than half tide.

The problem now was that the forecast for the afternoon was Sou'westerly F6 or 7 gusting 8 and a Gale Warning was in force for the Thames Estuary.

My standing rule is that we do not, under any circumstances, set out if a gale warning is in force. Worse, we'd have twelve miles or more of wind over tide in the Whitaker and Outer Crouch and we know from experience just how rough that can be in substantially less wind than expected.

The final straw was seeing a sustained gust of over 40 knots, or very nearly F9, on the Windex which was firmly glued in the F6 to F7 bracket with regular gusts of F8. Conditions were at least as bad as the previous afternoon, if not worse.

It was not hard to make the decision to stay put until the following morning, by which time the forecast was for F2 or 3 from the South.

We generally pottered about for the day, Tony and I walked up to Bradwell-on-Sea to procure some cigs and cigars, just making it as the community shop was closing, and we rounded off the day with a meal on board and a beer or three in the Green Man.

Monday morning saw Tony and I up well before dawn and setting out into a nigh on flat calm ...

Sunrise off Start Point

There was little more than an F1 from the Sou-West and it simply wasn't worth hoisting the sails. On another day with no time constraints we'd have motored out to St. Peter's Flats against the flooding tide and then ghosted down the Ray Sand channel enjoying the sunshine and the calm conditions. Today we had to get back to Fambridge as fast as we possibly could as Jane had to be in work tonight.

We followed the 3m contour around the North side of St. Peters Flats and then nipped over the top of the Batchelor Spit. Crossing the Ray Sand things seemed a little shallower than last year which fits with the Spitway having possibly shoaled. We'll have to be cautious until we know for sure what's what.

We had a problem off Holliwell Point just as we entered the Crouch. Although the alarm hadn't gone off, I noticed than the cockpit cooling water indicator, known as "the piddler" wasn't piddling. A glance over the stern had me worried as there was as much steam was water emerging from the wet exhaust and of water there was a good deal less than there should be.

We hurriedly anchored and stopped the engine to investigate. I found the dead remains of a tiny little octopus or jellyfish, couldn't tell which, in the water filter but that wasn't enough to cause a problem. Whipping the impeller cover off, I found the impeller was perfectly OK. Pulling the hose off the bottom of the intake flow sensor there was water at that point but it wasn't making it through the sensor into the filter.

I struggled unsuccessfully to remove the short length of hose above the sensor from either the filter body or the sensor house so eventually resorted to shoving a screwdriver down the pipe. This appeared to do the trick as water now emerged from the sensor in sufficient quantity that upon reassembling the filter and starting the engine the bowl wasn't running dry. There still wasn't as good a water flow as there should be but since the engine seemed determined not to overheat even with hardly any cooling water we raised anchor and got under way again.

Over the next hour the water flow steadily improved until once again the piddler was soaking the feet of the unwary and all seemed well. There's some issues to resolve though - the flow alarm didn't sound presumably because there was still some water flow and the alarm sensor needs to be on the outlet side of the filter not the inlet side so that the sensor isn't a potential source of a blockage (which seems to be what had happened)

With the breeze having picked up a bit and backed more Southerly, once clear of the Burnham moorings we set the genoa and motor sailed. It only have us an extra half a knot or so but having lost nearly half an hour with the cooling problem we needed any help we could get!

We furled it away again as we approached the river moorings at Fambridge which will soon be our home again for the summer but today we needed to get back into the marina berth if at all possible.

Happily, we were just early enough to scrape in with a couple of feet of water to spare. We backed "Erbas" into her berth on this occasion to make life easier for the next time she'll be used then set about offloading kit and tidying up as quickly as possible.

We got everything done in the nick of time which meant we didn't have to implement the alternate plan of Tony taking Jane home whilst I finished off and followed later.

It was only when we were on the doorstep of Boreham Service Station getting on for ha;f an hour into our journey that I realised I'd left the immersion heater on. It wouldn't be the end of the world but as we're on metered electricity it would be a waste of money. Happily, Tony had only made it as far as Maldon and he didn't mind nipping back and unplugging the shore power and stowing the lead under the cockpit tent.

As Rik and Michelle will be aboard next weekend that's not the end of the world.