( Overview
/ Two Scilly Bullocks on a Boat
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Thanks to fantastic weather apps, we planned to sail all the way back to our home marina, Titchmarsh today, once again ahead of the storms forecast for tomorrow.
Another early morning, and a transit through the locks at dawn.
Using the lit buoys to exit through the outer harbour.
Another yacht left with us. They would be just behind us to Dover, before heading for Dunkerque.
Once again a beautiful, but worrying, red sky this morning.
It was windy, but along with the waves, it was once again behind us.
Passing Hastings. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place 8 miles to the west at Senlac Hill in 1066.
Part of the Weald Basin, the cliffs around the town are known as Hastings Sands. They are buff-coloured sandstone because hundreds of feet of clay and chalk as been eroded.
The Dungeness power stations are a pair of non-operational nuclear power stations. Dungeness A reached the end of life in 2006. Dungeness B, an advance gas-cooled reactor, began operating in 1985, but by 2018 EDF encountered ‘significant and ongoing challenges’ and it was closed in June 2021.
There have been 8 lighthouses at Dungeness, 5 main and 3 subsidiary lights. The latter were necessary owing to the constant accretion of shingle on the spit, which leaves the lighthouse further from the sea. Wyatt’s tower, built in 1792, has keepers’ dwellings (the white building) on the site.
Built is 1961 because construction of the power station obscured the previous lighthouse, which dated from 1904. The predecessor remains standing, but is decommissioned.
Not quite like the North Atlantic, but the following waves were quite big!
The White Cliffs of Dover which , reaches a height of 350 feet, owes its striking appearance to a composition of chalk accentuated by streaks of black flint. It is the point where Great Britain is closest to continental Europe.
Parts of the cliffs have been protected from erosion by installing matting, encouraging grass and plants to grow.
Crossing the Port of Dover always seems to be tricky because of the constant coming and going of ferries who stop for no man. The website Visitmyharbour describe the cross-channel ferries as having their lair in the north-eastern corner. That’s what it feels like!
We managed to avoid the outgoing ferries and keep going, but then two incoming ferries appeared, and we had to take evasive action. We felt surrounded!
Looking back on Dover Castle.
Margate, one of the Cinque Ports, is now a tourist destination with Dreamland and the Turner Contemporary art gallery. It was at this point I wanted to be anywhere but on Avalon. The turbulence of the sea and relentless monotony of being thrown around, along with feeling tired, made me feel sick.
Waking from a much needed sleep (it was my turn) we were approaching the London Array wind farm. Located 12 miles off the Kent coast it was the largest wind farm in the world until the Walney Extension was completed in 2018.
The second phase of a further 166 turbines was cancelled because of concerns over the effect on the population of red-throated divers.
Foulger’s and Fisherman’s Gat are ancient channels leading through the sandbanks and wind farms from the Kent to Essex coasts. Ours minds struggled with the shallow depths!
Work boats were buzzing between turbines as we traversed the wind farm.
Ocean Network Express Holdings Ltd (ONE) is owned by a Japanese shipping line. All it’s newly launched ships and containers are painted in a magenta shade, inspired by cherry blossom trees, one of the national symbols of Japan.
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