Monday 4 June
Tuesday 5 June
Wednesday 6 June
Thursday 7 June
Friday 8 June
Saturday 9 June
Sunday 10 June
Oulton Broad Yacht Station
Oulton Broad Yacht Station
Oulton Broad Yacht Station
Oulton Broad Yacht Station
Oulton Broad Yacht Station to Berney Arms (again!!)
Berney Arms to Woodbridge (the great escape part 2)
Woodbridge
returns to top of this page
The weather is still much the same and the North wind doth blow - force 4/5 and cold. Having sorted out the remaining insurance issues we posted the paperwork at the local post office. After that we went into Lowestoft on the train to check out the bus to Southwold for the next day. Lowestoft itself is rather run down and shabby. But it does have a nice beach.
Weather unchanged. Got the train into Lowestoft and the bus to Southwold. The bus took nearly an hour making a very circuitous route - almost as long as by sea in Starry Night!
Had a very pleasant day in Southwold as the sun did eventually come out after which it was very warm out of the shade, but perishing in the shade and even worse down by the sea!
Excellent F and C for lunch.
Oulton Broad from the Yacht Station
Weather changed - for the worse! No sunshine today!! Newspaper shows the rest of England in the low 20s and sunny with gentle breeze. Here we are under grey skies being battered by an F4 to F5 icy North wind with no prospect of it letting up. Have mentally postponed the trip down the coast to Woodbridge until Friday/Saturday. Doing lots of reading! Went for a walk round the nearby park alongside the broad where there are masses of small and rather decrepit boats moored up.
It's much more exciting than we thought possible, due to the handicapping system which ensures a very competitive finish. The difference in handicaps between the slowest and fastest was three laps on a nine lap race! There are some very powerful, noisy machines doing 90/100mph smelling strongly of Castrol R! Spoiled only by the cold damp and murky weather.
Coastal forecast for Saturday looks promising so we plan to go round to Berney Arms on Friday and then down the coast on Saturday. We will see!!
Doing 90mph at this point
The fastest boat thanks to a 2.5 litre motor
I was briefly aware of the sound of rain on the deck above our bedroom sometime before daylight and it was still going strong at breakfast time. But it did eventually stop mid morning. In the meantime we had obtained several inshore forecasts for key points along the route via marinecall over the web and these looked very promising for Saturday. So we decided we would go for it. A quick trip up the road for some provisions and then we settled our dues with the harbour master.
We also made contact with the bridge control office at Yarmouth to find out the predicted clearance on Saturday morning's low water - not enough to avoid lowering the windscreen. But we were told there were other boats going out the same time as we wanted to, and they were planning a bridge lift at 10:00. We had to call back between 4 and 5 pm for confirmation (which we did and it's all systems go!).
Somerleyton railway swing bridge was interesting. We had to do the thing with three long blasts of the horn. The chap in the signal box gave a friendly wave and slid out a large sign saying that the bridge would open in 10 minutes. We were most impressed as this is the first time we have seen this done at any of the bridges.
They have a special place for the information to be displayed. There is a fixed sign saying "Bridge will open.." alongside which the all informative "in XX minutes" has to be appended. So even if the bridge isn't about to open the sign saying "bridge will open" is always displayed!!! It's all very confusing to the occasional user. A train came past and the bridge opened. Perfect!
Anyway we are safely moored at the Berney Arms ready for tomorrows passage. It was a chilly day and the prospect for tomorrow is no better. However we are hoping for very little wind and smooth to calm water.
Somerleyton bridge signal box - note "bridge will open" sign and just one small window facing our direction (compared to a panorama of glass facing the other way!
Somerleyton Bridge
We woke up to a dull day with only a very light wind as promised by the man from the met office. By 09:00 we were pulling away from our mooring, witnessing a hire boat trying to moor up but getting itself hopelessly entangled with a moored 40ft+ ocean going plastic fantastic whose crew were rapidly deploying all their fenders etc and trying to combat the strong ebb tide that was in charge of the situation. There but...!
We arrived at Breydon Bridge more or less at the same time as the other boats that were due through for the 10:00 bridge lift, each of us announcing our presence on the VHF. We were all early and had to wait 15 minutes or so, doing small circuits at the end of Breydon Water. At 10:00 exactly the bridge started to open at which point we happened to be the boat nearest to the bridge.
Using our now practiced Dutch bridge tactics we surged forward and the others all followed in line behind us. There was another boat waiting the other side for the Haven Bridge to open and within five minutes we were through there too.
The trip through the Yarmouth docks after that, was very straightforward. There were plenty of coaster sized ships docked, and nothing on the move. It took about half an hour to get to the harbour entrance. The sea was pretty much as advertised - rippled to smooth with a gentle swell. We set the auto-pilot to follow our planned route and sat back!
An hour later we were passing Lowestoft (just 45 minutes from Oulton Broad via the broken lock); another hour took us to Southwold; another hour and we were passing Sizewell nuclear power station; another hour and we were off Orfordness with its lighthouse and post war nuclear bomb component test bunkers (known as pagodas).
Finally another hour and we had arrived at the Woodbridge Haven buoy which sits out in the sea about a mile off shore opposite the entrance to the River Deben. The buoy was well obscured by an armada of small sailing craft and rescue boats in some sort of competition - not very handy!
The best bit was still to come and by now the sun was shining too. The nine miles up the Deben to Woodbridge is one of the most picturesque stretches of river on the East Coats and it was perfect. Our berth was waiting for us at the Tide Mill Marina and we were safely ensconced by 5pm.
Breydon Bridge
Haven Bridge
Great Yarmouth harbour
Lazed around in the morning and then went out for Sunday lunch and a bevy or two of Adnams. Followed by a pleasant walk down the riverside path.
Copyright © 2006-2009 Mike Hawkridge