To the Broads 1993 continued

  “I have to run the engine (diesel, probably 50/60 H.P.) so that my wife can use the hair dryer.!” The pollution from this nonsense has to be seen to be believed. On past the pub with its bright lights and the darker residential area, as I lowered down the gear. Would the bridge ever come into view? Suddenly it appeared high up in the mist and we swept through the gurgling water. It was just midnight. I paddled on slowly past the small boatyard on the north bank until I could vaguely sense rather than see, the reeds on the eastern side of the entrance to the New Cut. The river turns easterly here and I knew I was on my own for several miles. Up mast and I did find occasional light airs from the northwest but most of the time I was to be tacking with the tide wind and using the paddles to come round if there seemed to be any doubt. If you do touch the bank, the current soon swings the stern round and drives the boat hard against the bank facing upstream. The river winds from south of east to west of north. At times I got steerageway from the sails. After an hour or more I sensed a shed, a large square building I knew to be on the north bank. Later a derelict mill on the south side stood out against the moon and is the only one in that area. Over halfway to Breydon! The tide ran even stronger now. Another mill, the only other one on the south side, the white hull of a yacht near the only house and suddenly I looked northwest to see the gigantic structure of the Berney Arms Mill reaching above the mist to the right of the full moon. A perfect fix! It was 0200 hrs so I was well on time but the next three miles across the open Breydon Water would be another problem. No longer would I have the tall reeds on either side to keep me on the straight and narrow, just green and red posts too far apart to be visible one from another in this fog. The river here makes a dogleg to the north, which was difficult, but here at least the channel runs close to the high northern sea wall. Once out onto Breydon Water, spotting and dodging the posts proved difficult for when they loomed through the mist, there was no background with which to judge the direction of the tide and I brushed against three of them. The answer was to keep the boat heading between eastnortheast and east (thank heaven for a large points card illuminated from below through a red filter). At one time a post ahead left me instead of approaching. After a muddled moment, I realise that the boat had turned round completely. I found about half of them, mostly on the south side. Gradually the noise of traffic warned of the bypass bridge ahead. Last Tuesday morning I had noted red lights on the massive piles on the southern shore where coasters can tie up to wait for the bridge to open, so I stuck to the southern side to use these lights as a warning, for I didn’t wish to be suddenly swept onto the bridge with this strong tide. Once they came in sight, I tacked north in the tide wind, spotted a green post and anchored inshore of it to lower down. I started quanting along in the shallows but realised that I was loosing the benefit of the current and moved out into deeper water and the swifter tide, using the paddle to pass under the bridge at 0345 hrs and anchor on the spit between the rivers to wait for the ebb in the River Bure to ease. I noted that the water was already rising (low water Yarmouth bar 0255hrs). The River Bure curves to the right under two bridges just before its junction with the Yare and although the ebb runs very fast on the eastern side, there is an eddy on the western side. The water is very shallow but with the plate up Shoal Waters can quant under the two bridges to anchor above them. It gives me time to get the gear up at leisure as the last of the ebb slinks away. This is important, as a rising northeast wind funnels down the narrow Bure, which meant a beat for the first half-mile. While still head to wind, I could hoist the sails at slack water, ready to get under way with the first signs of the flood. If I came through with the first of the flood and anchored to raise the gear, the boat would point downsteam with the wind coming over the stern, which would make hoisting the mainsail and getting the anchor in the narrow river almost impossible.

  The flood started up the Bure at 0530 hrs with the wind rising by the minute. Once round the great half circle to the Three Mile house, it was a fair wind with brilliant early morning sunshine illuminating the reeds along each bank. By 0915 hrs at Acle it was really coming onto blow, and mooring to get through was a problem but somehow I managed and sailed on to Womack Dyke by noon. Four hours later, at which time I would have been negotiating Yarmouth if I had ducked the night passage, the whole boat shook regularly in the gusts and a warning for northeast gales came over the radio. I am glad I left the River Chet when I did.