Back in the UK

I say, it is jolly nice to back in good old blighty! Yep, afte stocking up on a few essentials in Calais (4 Euro something for a 5 litre plastic barrel of wine!) it was time to head for home waters. We had to lock out of Calais marina yesterday evening due to bridge opening times and had a very rolly night outside on a mooring bouy. Never mind, at 0600 the wind was a nice gentle breeze and the light mist seemed to be clearing up nicely so it was slip mooring, dodge the ferries and head for Great Britain.

Except the mist didn't clear and, in fact, got a lot worse. Put it this way, I asked my crew if she could see any ships and she replied, "Who said that?!" It was a real pea-souper!

As you can imagine, it was a very tense crossing. Procedure demands all traffic call Dover harbour control when within 2 M of the entrance, & this I did. The nice gentleman asked me to call back when within sight of the harbour wall & more tense minutes (hours, days, weeks...) followed as the GPS counted down the remaining distance to 0.00 M "You have arrived" (!) But where?! Another 100m or so and a huge wall loomed out of the gloom. Iturned West as I thought I could see the end of it and, sure enough, there was the entrance. The entrance is a little over 0.1 M accross and I could barely see accross it!!! Must note at this point that the Dover port control was excellent and it was good to know that I Vega 1494 showed up on their radar.

We had planned to anchor in the outer harbour but, as we couldn't see Jack, we went for the easiest option at the time and berthed in the marina. I congratulated my crew in our customary manner and handed her a cold beer. Cheers!