Sailed from Pyefleet Creek anchorage (Brightlingsea) to the Deben yesterday. Made really good time. Too good time! So couldn't enter the very shallow entrance straight away. We "hove to" to wait for the tide to rise some more. Wind was 20+ knots though and even hove to we were making 2 knots. I played about a bit and found we were better off with the main alone rather than also using the jib. Not something anyone has ever suggested before.
The swell was quite bad so I phoned the harbour master and he said we'd be OK to come in, so we did. We sailed in under a fully reefed main, then sailed (and motored a teeny bit now and then when the river's direction was straight upwind) up the river to "The Rocks" an anchorage about five miles up - which is where I'm now sat, with the Three dongle hoisted as high as it'll go, which is giving me 3 bars of mobile broadband.
Quite nice up the Deben it is!
Departing will be interesting - supposedly we have to do it on the rising tide, fighting against the current. And if there's been any strong easterlies we can't leave _at all_.
Local paper (Whitby) has run an article on our voyage, with some photos. Unfortunately they didn't include a link to our justgiving page, or to this blog... which is a shame as that's why we were trying to get them to do the article in the first place
