Cruising Grounds

When we bought Naughty-Cal some five years ago now we didn’t have a clue where we would berth her. We knew we wanted to be no more than an hour’s drive from Sheffield but aside from that knew precious little about our local waterways.

As we bought Cal from Burton Waters and the marina is based on a gentle, easy to navigate canal we decided it was the ideal base for our first year of boat ownership whilst we set out to learn how to handle the boat. Little did we realise just what an ideal base it would become for our future forays.

Initially we spent time pottering around exploring the inland cruising opportunities of the Fossdyke, Witham, Trent, Ouse and Soar but as our confidence and experience grew the lure of the coast could wait no longer. Just a day’s cruising in either direction, along the Witham to Boston or down the Trent and Humber to Hull or Grimsby, brings us to the coast and a whole new selection of cruising opportunities just waiting for us to explore.

Our first truly coastal trip, we don’t count trips to Hull in this category, was a trip to Wells next the Sea. A place we are now truly familiar with as we visit on a regular basis. This is usually a make or break trip and either brings out the natural mariner in folks or puts them off coastal cruising for life. Despite a choppy crossing we loved it and have never looked back since.

Since that first coastal cruise in 2010 we have enjoyed many more trips on the salty stuff. Places we have visited include:

• ·         Wells next the Sea (too many times to count)
• ·         Norfolk Broads (twice)
• ·         Lowestoft
• ·         Great Yarmouth
• ·         Blakeney
• ·         Southwold
• ·         Grimsby
• ·         Kings Lynn

As you can see we are yet to scratch the surface of the locations available and we have many more on our list to cross off. Next summer should hopefully see us heading north up the coast to Eyemouth stopping off at many places on our list along the way. If the weather plays ball our two week summer cruise will see us visiting:

• ·         Grimsby
• ·         Whitby
• ·         Newcastle
• ·         Amble
• ·         Eyemouth
• ·         Hartlepool
• ·         Scarborough
• ·         Hull

As with any coastal passage, no matter how much planning you do the weather is the deciding factor in your trip. So as with any coastal trip we will have a plan B which will be an inland excursion. Again we will be spoilt for choice here as well. We have so many local inland waterways that we have yet to visit all with in easy striking distance for a two week cruise.

The likely favourite for  our Plan B summer holiday 2014 is the Great Ouse. Our recent visit to Kings Lynn has wetted our appetite to explore this river further. Within our two week break we could include a week on the non tidal river followed by a visit to Wisbech on the Nene, a visit to Fossdyke on the Welland and a day or so on the Black Sluice navigation before heading for home.

As I am sure you have worked out by now we have no plans to move from our current base as it offers us so much scope to explore so many different and varied waterways. The only problem we have is choosing where to go next.