Whey hey ... time to get the good ship downwards and ready for our summer holiday. Top man and First Mate, Rob P, on board with a planned stop off at Ramsgate to pick up Tom Parsons, the Ships Doctor before we sail to Dover.
I love the passage across the Thames estuary. Loads of exciting sand banks to dodge, a complicated tide and plenty of traffic to weave between.
Weather was lovely and warm but I'm afraid for Saturday was wind free so it was a bit of a donk. Sunday was much perkier.
Here are the pictures.
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| Marine Traffic shot of the route we took. Interestingly the tide seems to support the 'outer' route going south and the inner route going north. |
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| North Foreland creeping up on the starboard side |
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| Not a sight you would want to see but if you look carefully you will see that she's at anchor! |
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| Snugged up in Ramsgate Marina ... we are in the outer harbour in the back of this photo. It's a great harbour Ramsgate but not brillantly run which is a shame. Don't forget to visit the excellent Temple Yacht Club. |
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| The Ships Doctor travelled down to Ramsgate using the excellent Southeastern railway supported by the equally excellent Network Rail infrastructure to arrive at Ramsgate Station spot on time. Rob and I picked him up and we enjoyed an excellent curry and a number of pints in the Yacht Club. The following day we made the short hop down to Dover in a blustery F4-5 on the nose. We enjoyed sailing straight through a racing fleet ... twice, which helped pass the time. |
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| A tack down to Dover |
Entering Dover was good fun with a highly professional Harbour Master. You call them up 2 miles out, then 200m out and then seek further permission to enter the inner harbour. Sounds complicated but actually very easy. We made a little video of entering the harbour ... play with volume up! Seas as ever pretty choppy off the harbour entrance.
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| Snugged up in Dover |
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