Voyage to Petchey's Bay....NOT

Sometimes the best laid plans don't come to fruition and this weekend's voyage was definitely one of those times!

On Thursday we hatched a plan to sail to Petchey's Bay and go to Brian's Birthday Party. We were going to leave on Friday after work, moor at Woodbridge and spend most of Saturday sailing to Petchey's bay. John managed to get Friday off work and spent the day running around buying bits for the boat and getting ready for the voyage.

I now need to digress for a moment and tell you all about the great new gear we got for Barquero. The bits John bought for the boat were: A GPS chart plotter, wind instrument, a new VHF radio, rod holders and a new boat (car) stereo. Bye bye bonus - but hello 21rst century for Barquero! Awesome toys really great gear. Anyhow - John spent most of his Friday buying and installing the gear while I was at work.

I got home around 4:45 and by 5:15ish we were headed to the Marina with a stop for some hot chips at George's takeaway in Margate (we were both so busy we failed to have lunch). We got all our gear on board and I had to work up he courage to get on board. We've moved to a new berth at the marina where we have to climb into the pointy end of the boat (the bow) - I'm not very good with my balance and my phobias of falling in the drink but I got there eventually! We were out of the Marina by 6PM.

The wind was doing crazy things out there so in the end we pulled in our sails and motored. It took us about an hour to get out of NW Bay and there was quite a bit of water between us and Woodbridge so we made the decision to pull into Barnes Bay and spend the night there.

We cruised into Sykes Cove and we were very well protected from the Southerly that was blowing. After some initial anchor troubles (read Jelly the spastic still can't work the damn thing properly) we anchored. We had some lovely Beef Stroganoff for dinner and decided to turn in early. At this point I must say I'm quite impressed with our little metho stove - I think we could cook just about anything on it.

It was so calm and sheltered the boat hardly moved at all during the night. We tried to settle into the V-Berth for the night but I found it a bit too clausterphobic and ended up moving to the main cabin in the middle of the night.

We woke up at around 7 and got underway heading towards Petcheys. As soon as we got out of the cove the weather started.... It got quite windy from the south which is great if your are going North but crap if you are heading south. Then as we started getting to Woodbridge the swell picked up. This is about the time John started cooking breakfast - we had scrambled eggs on croissants (yes we eat VERY well at sea) and poor John was tossed about the galley and was nearly sick. Poor Rexy got sick along the way - so far he is the only crew of the Barquero to succumb to seasickness.

After breakfast the rain came in and made everything quite miserable. We then made the call to abandon our voyage turn around and head home. Once we turned the boat around and had our backs to the wind that made everything much nicer - we were actually going in the direction of the waves and not against them and it made a huge difference. John hoisted the foresail up and we were doing 6 knots at one point. This made for a speedy journey home.

Once we got into NW Bay the wind just about died so we had to motor the rest of the way. At the Marina the wind seemed to pick up and we had to make 3 attempts to get the boat berthed. We were all happy to get out of a rocky boat - especially Rex! and would you believe I got off the boat in one go with no hesitation...nothing like a bit of motivation!

Looking forward to the next adventure.

PS: I've started a Google myMap of our favourite haunts. check it out!


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