Getting Prepared

As the weeks march on and we get ever closer to our big summer holiday we are starting to get prepared for the off. 

This is a trip into the unknown for us as it will be the first time we have cruised north along the East coast. In previous years we have always headed south.

As part of the preparations, I have been busy with:

• ·         Plotting waypoints on the paper charts
• ·         Gathering information about each port we plan to visit
• ·         Gathering information regarding tidal windows at each port
• ·         Putting waypoints into the chart plotter
• ·         Checking tide times
• ·         Planning legs of the trip around tide times and tidal windows

As you can probably gather by now this is going to be far from an easy trip to get right. The majority of ports we plan to visit have a limited tidal window in which to enter the port with enough water for safe entry. We need to plan each leg thoroughly and carefully to ensure we hit each entry at the right state of tide for our draft requirements. No point getting to port only to find there is not enough water to enter, as the Dutch yachtie found out when he couldnt enter Wells at low tide. He had to take a detour to Grimsby.

Of course the one thing we can’t plan for is the weather and sea conditions and we will have to keep a close eye on this right through the holiday. If the weather is forecast to turn bad we will have to come up with a plan B which could easily be leaving the boat somewhere safe until better weather allows our return. Ideally this wouldn’t be the case but we have to be prepared to do this.