POOH BEAR REPORT #11 - 05 November 2002 Actually, I was Wrong, the Engine was Fixed! The autumnal gales did not continue forever. A break did come. And the engine was fixed; I think. It was still slow starting if it is really cold, like temperatures in the 30s, but it did start. And the day after the engine was declared fixed, the gale machine must have broken, because not only was a lull predicted, but actually materialized. On a gray Wednesday morning, the 30th of November, we cast off from Whitby Marina, and motored out through the breakwaters that we had entered 27 days previous. You would think we would be ecstatic, but Judy and I both were actually a bit sad. And to make things worse, we were reminded of one of the downsides of cruising; so many goodbyes. David and Sue Sykes had gotten up early and walked out on the breakwater to wave us a goodbye. For the first time in our sailing Britain, we filed with the Coast Guard a "Passage Plan; Whitby direct to Lowestoft, ETA 1300 on 31 October, 32 foot white sailboat with blue trim, two persons aboard". Once around the bell buoy, we set a southeast course, but the anticipated 10 to 15 knot northeast wind was instead west at 5 knots and we motored on. Soon the west wind faded completely and we motored on. Then a beautiful 10 to 12 knot east wind sprang up and we hoisted the staysail and prepared to roll out the jib. We were still trimming the staysail when the east wind went southeast, right on the nose so we lowered the staysail and motored on. In fact, the wind never exceeded 5 knots the rest of the day and night, so we motored on. It was a quiet, uneventful night, all 15 hours of it, and after daylight we picked our way through the ever-shifting sand banks, and the frequently moved buoys marking the Cockle channel. Mid-morning on Th! ursday we had reached our intended destination, Lowestoft, but with a continued forecast of light winds, we revised our "Passage Plan" with the Coast Guard and pressed on for Harwich, maybe even Queenborough on the river Medway. During the day, skies had cleared and the temperature became quite mild (relatively speaking of course, as we were still wearing our long johns and did not consider taking them off). During that difficult to see period between sundown (1630 hours) and dark (about 1730 hours), we crossed the ship channel at Harwich, dodging a seemingly never-ending stream of inbound and outbound ships. South of Harwich we entered the Thames Estuary. The estuary is a series of channels radiating from the Thames River, each channel delineated by miles long sandbars that frequently dry at low water. We picked one of the smaller channels reasoning that it would not likely be used by ships. Wrong. For six hours we bucked a foul tide, crawling along at 3 to 3.5 knots and dodging over a dozen ships. And believe me, it is hard to dodge a 15 or 20 knot ship when you are moving only 3.5 knots. To add to the fun and games, Port Control London attempted to assist by vectoring a ship around us and the skipper apparently didn't understand English. Exciting. Undoubtedly, several ships were quite tired of hearing Pooh Bear's name on the radio. One even voiced his irritation to Port Control Radio. We were greatly relieved when, after mid-night, we were safely across the Thames channel and entering the Medway channel with only 5 miles to go to Queenborough. Our relief was short lived however; a huge car carrier showed up outbound for sea followed immediately by an equally large car carrier inbound for Sheerness. We crept along outside of the channel, still at a blazing 3.5 knots. Eventually the current relented and our speed shot up to 5.5 knots, but simultaneously we arrived in Queenborough and closed our "Passage Plan". At 0230 Pooh Bear was secured to the All Tide Landing and the engine shut down, 42.5 hours after being started in Whitby. What blessed silence. The weather deteriorated, but not so much as to prevent us from motoring the 10 miles up the Medway to the Chatham Maritime Marina on Saturday to fill fuel tanks for the winter. Saturday night again we lay on the Queenborough All Tide Landing as another gale with driving rain blew through. A little after 0600 Monday morning we cast off and motored back down the Medway and turned west into the Thames. As always, we were punching into a 20-knot headwind, but this time we had both a fair current and clear skies. It was nearing spring tides and we saw 7.5 to over 8 knots over the bottom all the way to Tower Bridge and our timing was perfect; an open lock at St. Katharine's awaited us. However, once in the lock we had to wait for almost an hour as the tides were so high the Thames was flowing over both the outer and inner gates and into the marina. Opening the inner gate before the Thames level had fallen would have resulted in a tidal wave in ! the marina. By 1500 Pooh was back in the same slip we had departed on 15 May. For a wonderful ending to our 2002 cruise, we enjoyed having Pooh Bear's cockpit filled with a stream of friends, some old, some new. Was the season a success? You bet! What we saw of Ireland was great and Scotland was outstanding. Our only real regrets are; the limited time in Ireland; we did not make it to the Outer Hebrides and the north side of Skye; we could not stay longer in Scotland. What now? Well, London has a limitless supply of events we can enjoy this winter. And we have several friends and even relatives in Britain that we wish to visit. And Pooh, like every boat, returned with a lengthy winter "to do" list. And we still hope to finish the Pooh Bear Reports for the Classic Malts Cruise and for our cruise through Scotland. And we need to plan our January and February return to the States. And we still have no idea of what we will do in 2003, but we must plan and prepare for it. Hence, there is no lack of things for our time in London this winter. End of "Whitby to London" *********************************************************************** Bob & Judy (aboard s/v Pooh Bear in London, England) P.S. You can check our latest "reported" position (usually updated each night when traveling) at the following URL: http://www.aprs.net/cgi-bin/winlink.cgi?W5TFY and http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?call=W5TFY NOTE: Until further notice, PLEASE address all e-mail to: W5TFY@amsat.org. DO NOT hit the "Reply" button, even if incoming mail shows a different "Reply To" address. THANKS.