Another blue skies morning, but worse winds than yesterday. A skim of the wind forecasts brought frowns to our faces. The window of opportunity that we had identified for the following day was starting to close.
To keep my mind occupied I decided to take the Volvo Penta instrument Panel apart to try and ascertain why the ignition warning light had failed to come on when there was the battery charging failure. To cut a long story short I deduced there was a bad connection to the bulb and a fault in the electronic test sounder circuit. These faults were easy enough the fix, but sadly the whole electronic circuit board was encapsulated in epoxy, rendering the unit unfixable. Options were:, buy a new unit (but they are no longer manufactured), buy a second hand one, or build a new one from scratch. The last option is doable, but the headache would be in trying to inconspicuously integrate it into the existing instrument panel. I did a quick mental assessment of how I could provide a quick fix to ensure the batteries could be charged should the backup fail, and we agreed to reassess the way forward back in the UK after the trip.
Hike by the River Stour to Relieve the Boredom
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Much of the day was spent poring over weather and wind applications, searching for the magical weather window opportunity to cross the North Sea. At one point we convinced ourselves leaving the following morning at 4am would be ideal. Then, as the fickle weather system developed, and our hallucinations got worse, we considered 10pm later today, and as madness descended upon us, we focussed on 8pm. The wind dropped to a Force 3, but the seas would still be unsettled, with indications of waves up to 1m in height. Come 7:30pm, we just wanted to get on with it, and departed. Had dementia finally settled in?
There was no great fanfare as we slipped out of the marina into Felixstowe harbour. Indeed, the harbour area was deserted apart from five containerships being loaded/unloaded. The sea beyond the port was benign to us. A few lobster pots had to be circumnavigated, but otherwise we were the only souls out on the water.
Leaving Felixstowe Far Behind
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We set a course to pass south of the Cork Sands. At the top of the King's Channel a few ships lay at anchor. Here, a giant gyratory system was situated a few miles north of us, a huge invisible roundabout where ships travelled in an anticlockwise direction as they entered and exited the four shipping lanes that converged on it. It was in the vicinity of here where ships' pilots, based in Harwich, were picked up or dropped off. The pilot boats buzzed to and from Harwich at a nippy 26 knots. At the top of the Black Deep, and the lights of the Port of Felixstowe still twinkling in the distance, I handed watch over to Rex at midnight.
Sunset Over Essex
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