Ijmuiden to Eastbourne by BIG Nordhavn

As we had a civilised late morning departure planned, the day started as a low stress one. Quick engine room check (all was well) and then firing up the instruments ready for the off: Alex had completed the on-line information demanded by the UK customs folks now and so we were good to go:

The one small challenge was that there was nowhere / nobody to "stamp" the passport of the British crewmember to say he had left the EU and that his 90 day allowance to stay there was no longer being used up. Thanks Brexit for making life so simple. No idea how that gets rectified.

This view was looking aft, our farewell to the Netherlands showing the rather industrial area around Ijmuiden:

and all was well on the good ship Lady Grey, even if some of the crew looked rather dodgy:

The forecast was amazingly good for the time of year in the North Sea. A bit bumpier to begin with as the wind had been from the NW and we would be heading broadly in that direction but then it was to calm down and not pick up and turn SW until early afternoon the following day, by when we should be in Eastbourne all being well.

The bumpier start of the trip cut our speed a little:

and caused Gisele  to feel less than well. Some sun and flattening seas helped her to look much perkier later on, sitting in the pilothouse and watching the many ships heading into and out of the myriad of shipping lanes in the area:

We didn't have too many that forced us to alter course to avoid them, amazing really. Alex called a couple and they even altered course by a few degrees to save us a huge detour. Most kind indeed. There are plenty of shipping lanes to avoid around here:

a pretty busy picture and of course we either have to avoid the lanes or cross them at right angles. Makes planning this trip a bit harder than drawing a straight line to the Dover area

The wind settled down  and the wave pattern followed, by evening it was incredibly calm and we were treated to quite an impressive sunset:

as we headed down the North Sea towards the Thames estuary area:

The night-time view in Lady Grey's pilothouse is a lot like the one we have on board:

and with Alex we set up a watch routine - 4 on, 4 hours off. As it was so calm, sleeping in the forecabin (guest cabin) was fine.

There are plenty of wind farms around the many shipping lanes and the radar shows them up well (the green blobs are "non threatening" targets. After cruising Scotland it felt strange to be so far offshore but in under 40 metres of water - often more like 20:

Our route from Marinetraffic has a big "gap" in the middle of it which their system fills with a simple straight line. In reality, we headed further west from Ijmuiden before turning south west and running parallel to one of the main shipping lanes. You can see how the ground stations picked up our signal off the Thames Estuary and our "jink" around another traffic separation zone:

The last part of the trip, along the English south coast and to Eastbourne was pretty quiet. Dover had the usual manic number of ferries heading in and out to avoid but apart from hearing the Border Force ships busy rescuing migrants who had headed over from France in the flimsy little dinghies there was no more excitement. The Border Force guys must just love that job each day that the sea calms down. They were collecting the migrants and then offloading them onto a navy ship and the government figures reported 856 migrants were landed that day. Wild, wild world we live in.

You can see the rest of our route here - a simple inshore run towards Eastbourne, passing the rather ugly Dungeness power station. You do get great views of the famous white cliffs beforehand though:

Alex called Sovereign Harbour Marina as we neared Eastbourne and sped up a bit to catch the timed lock-in. We know all about that game from the Cardiff barrage restrictions! Here is how the lock approach looks just after high water:

And now, tied up to the floating pontoon inside the lock and waiting to enter the marina:

Whilst waiting Alex and Gisele were proud when some onlookers asked where we had come from and was the boat new. Gisele told them no, she is a 2008 boat. Alex reminded her that Lady Grey was built in 2006.

We berthed in a very tight spot with pontoons on either side of us and only enough clearance to have fenders over on the starboard side. A cosy spot for the winter to ride out any strong winds. The afternoon was spent doing a few maintenance bits - one was the stern thruster oil top up (the captain needed arms that were about 10 cm longer to do this easily). Sadly they are of a fixed length so it involved some contortions laying underneath the steering gear. A truly horrible smell from the pilothouse aircon outlet was tended to and we investigated why the grey water tank pump out was painfully slow.

After the successful passage and afternoon of maintenance things, we felt that we deserved a celebration:

then dinner out before returning to a very smart looking boat to catch up on sleep:

The trip took just under 30 hours. The boat behaved well apart from some initial fun when the Satellite compass decided to lose our ship's heading in the rougher stuff and that upset the autopilot. We changed the feed to the autopilot and it all behaved properly after that. The HUGE John Deere engine didn't miss a beat and was pretty abstemious with fuel too. 7.2 knots or so being just under 17 lph. Good for a boat weighing 52 Tons plus fuel, water, RIB, personal effects etc etc.

All in all most enjoyable and it was good to be back out to sea again - well, for the captain. The crew continued her recovery in Toddlerville.