In the Water suddenly

No, not falling off the pontoon. Last Friday the Yard boss suddenly said "we can put you in now" - there was a brief lull in the crazy wind. So that was a scramble to get ready and then do all the leak checks when floating. 

So now we're furiously shopping, packing and wondering what we have forgotten. We might be off tomorrow (Mon) if the wind abates in time. There's a weather window of 2-3 days to get over to the Netherlands (Ijmuiden) before it gets all blowy again by Thu/Fri.

Storm-bound ... in the Yard!

Sirena IV lift-out

This is unusual. First blog of the season's cruising, and we're still in the Yard i.e. on the hard, out of the water, propped up, going nowhere.

Admittedly we were running late this year, in part due to Nic having a lot of University work (project management marking and new course development) and Lesley making a BBC R4 programme (on the fishing industry), and in part due to work being done on the boat by professionals - see the Sirena IV @ Medway blog.

The weather this spring had been kind - dry, sunny, perfectly clement.

Now it's June ... and the storms are upon us. The wind is howling and the rain is lashing down, all across the country. Specifically, the wind is too high (more than 25 knots) for lifting boats from the Yard into the water. We are in Chatham Marina, and booked to lift in tomorrow morning, Wed 7 June. But they haven't been able to lift since the w/e, and according to the forecast on xcweather they won't be able to lift until NEXT TUE, by which time there will be 20+ boats in front of us in the queue!!

So our hour-by-hour plan for this week, which should have seen us leaving the Medway for Harwich on Friday, is in tatters. We are somewhat deflated. Our friend Eric who lives in Holland is intending to come across to Harwich on the ferry and sail back with us to Amsterdam; we've had to put him 'on hold'. It really is most frustrating ... but that's sailing for you, and we have to roll with the weather and make the most of it.