Chapter 1

I screwed up. I know it, I admit it. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t shift the blame, though some at least belongs to my manager, who was one of those ‘I expect 110% from my staff’ people. Clearly, he’d either never studied maths, or had flunked the course. So, after an escalating series of mistakes or errors of judgment – none serious, but potentially so – I was suspended. My doctor diagnosed ‘depression’. Maybe he was right, but perhaps ‘burnt out’ would have been closer. I quit. Lost to nursing and, in fact, lost to society. No, didn’t go the drugs route – I never thought having some damn chemical telling me how to feel was a good idea – I just folded into myself. I wasn’t hurting for cash, owned ... mostly owned ... my little studio flat, but wanted to get away from people. Well, even in a city that’s not impossible. Sheffield is a green city, with lots of parks and open spaces, and walking distance or a bus ride from Derbyshire. After a few weeks of that, I decided it wasn’t enough.

I’d been tempted to run away to sea. Seriously. I know there isn’t the same need for seamen there was in the nineteenth century, but then I didn’t really need much in the way of income. I bought a boat. I knew the basics of sail handling and so on from dinghy sailing and with some little common sense, the east coast is a good place for inexperienced sailors; at least, please note, with some common sense. I travelled south-east on my motorbike. Brian (named for the snail in Magic Roundabout) is new – well, a couple of years old at the time – but the design goes back to about nineteen-fifty, just upgraded to conform to emission and safety standards. I stayed in a B and B near Ipswich and wandered around boatyards. No, a ‘fixer-upper’ would not do. It needed to be a sound boat, large enough for me to live in for an extended period, somewhere to keep a few books and clothes, to sleep warm and dry, but also to explore. I wanted to find the quiet places, where only natural sounds prevail. Wind, rain, the sea. Sea birds, waders ... and the wild geese on the salt-marsh. I was almost ready to give up when I noticed an advert in the local free paper.

‘Tranquillity’. Thirty feet, four berths, Bermudan cutter-rigged cabin boat. Radio, GPS, Yanmar diesel, solar panels, wind turbine generator. Age and infirmity force reluctant sale. Offers?

She was out of the water, in fact she was in the front drive of a thirties semi in Ipswich. She was almost thirty years old and home-built of marine ply on oak formers, but, as far as I could see, completely sound. Well laid out, too. Two of the berths were ‘quarter berths’, coffin-sized spaces extending under the cockpit benches, but there was a decent double berth forward, a comfortable cabin with galley, bench-seat and table, the table had to double as a chart table. There was a wet-locker and a sea-toilet, with a porta-potti hidden away for use in marinas. It all looked good.

“Rick Bennett,” I said. “I’ve come about Tranquillity.”

The owner, bright-eyed, but knocking on the door of ninety years and moving slowly with the aid of a stick, was good company. We talked for hours after I’d looked his boat over before we got to the point.

“So,” he said, eventually, “You interested?”

“Yes. Absolutely. She’s exactly what I’m looking for. But I suspect she’s worth a bit more than I’ve budgeted for.”

“Probably not. What was your budget, if I may ask?”

“Five thousand, including getting her onto the water and under way.”

“Fair enough. Suppose you give me three of those, and you’ll have some leeway on transport and craning in.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I like you, and I think you’ll sail her and enjoy her. I don’t want her to rot away sitting in a marina or a mud berth for an occasional weekend.”

I wrote the cheque on the spot. Then left to find a suitable launching arrangement. All I needed was a boat-yard with a crane, or a slipway.

Well, it took over six weeks, and several round trips, but I found a boat yard which would prepare and launch Tranquillity, would store Brian safe and dry. The flat I considered selling, but decided to rent it, through a letting agent. It meant some income, and keeping my investment, and having somewhere to retreat back to if the boat didn’t work out. I parked Brian, hired a car and collected what I wanted to keep from the flat. Anything worth something that I wasn’t leaving to the tender mercies of tenants went to charity shops. Drove back to Maldon, unloaded the car – the boat was low and dry, the tide being out. Slept for the first time aboard, stirring when I felt her lift on the tide and again when she settled. Returned the car to the agency, walked back to the boat.

I had no intention of paying for a permanent mooring or berth. There are places one can tie up for a few hours, sometimes up to twenty-four, in order to provision the ship. Membership of a club affiliated to the RYA often means access to showers in other sailing clubs. But I intended to live independently as far as possible.

As the tide rose, I started the motor and began to get the mainsail up; both stay-sail and jib were on roller-furling, a nice touch which simplified single-handed sailing.

The tide rose and the current slackened, and I cast off for the first time. I wasn’t taking any chances in the confined space of the upper Blackwater and harbour, and motored down river, though I could probably have sailed with the south-westerly moderate breeze. Time enough for that when I got a ‘handle’ so to speak on Tranquillity’s handling. When we rounded the point into Collier’s Reach, past Heybridge, I unfurled the head sails and sheeted in so we were sailing, but left the diesel ticking over, just in case of need. I finally shut it down as we passed ‘The Doctor’, a buoy by Osea Island.

The tide runs for just over six hours, but, of course, is later high up an estuary than at the mouth of the river. It’s about twelve miles from Maldon to Mersea Island at the mouth of the Blackwater, and sailing easily it took about three hours. I kept heading out and by the time the tide turned I was well clear of the Bradwell peninsula and spent an hour or so exploring Tranquillity’s handling characteristics. She seemed to be quite ‘handy’, with a short double keel – not quite a fin, as she was intended for sailing in the confined spaces and narrow, muddy estuaries of the East Anglian coast.

Once I was fairly happy, I headed in to the Colne, on the other side of Mersea Island. Taking advantage of the flood-tide, I was able to take Tranquillity past the Island and Brightlingsea on the other side of the river, and tuck in to Pyefleet Creek, which separates Mersea from the mainland. It’s a good anchorage, sheltered in south-westerlies, so I dropped the anchor with plenty of chain about seven o’clock, stowed the sails, and set about making my supper, which I ate sitting in the cockpit and listening to the waders and gulls on the saltings.

I’d intended to fire up my little laptop to read, but I found that I was content just sitting with a cup of tea until the day caught up with me. The daylight was just fading as I retired below, the white riding light gleaming at the mast.

I slept rather well, but woke realising my bunk was sloping and I was scrunched against the hull. I’d anchored perhaps a little close to the shore and Tranquillity’s twin keels had settled on the mud as the tide ebbed. It wasn’t a big problem, more of an irritation, and I got up to make myself a fried breakfast on the little gimballed stove. Thus fortified, I sat sipping coffee as the tide made, and Tranquillity began to lift. It took some time, as she tended to drift further in, but by the time I’d finished and taken care of personal requirements, she was tide-rode facing down the creek. With the wind still in the south-west, I saw no problem sailing over the flood, though getting the mainsail up facing downwind was a little intimidating. In the end, I just unfurled the two head-sails, which provided more than enough drive to stem the flow of the current. In fact, I furled the big Genoa again before weighing anchor. That way, I got the anchor up and was just stemming the current. Releasing the Genoa again gave me some drive over the tide, and once in the Colne, I was able to turn into the wind to hoist the mainsail.

During the flood, the current runs roughly south-west down the coast, so I didn’t do much good running before the wind until the tide turned at about one in the afternoon. It may seem stupid, but I hadn’t really given a thought to the need for food or to relieve myself whilst under way, so I got the chance to learn about heaving-to in ‘the Wallet’, the inshore passage between the entrance to the Colne and Blackwater, and that to the Orwell and Stour. For the uninitiated, that involves turning into the wind on starboard tack (with the wind coming from the right, starboard, side, over the bows), setting the stay-sail aback (sheeted in on the ‘wrong’ side), sheeting in the mainsail, and setting the helm (a tiller, in Tranquillity) to weather. Basically, it means the boat is sailing very slowly into the wind and fairly stable. It took a while to get the setting just so, then I was more than ready to ‘pee in windless comfort’, rather than to use a bailer from my dinghy in the open cockpit. I was also able to make a sandwich and grab a bottle of water. Live and learn.

I reached the Woodbridge Haven buoy just after eight in the evening. It’s advisable not to attempt the Deben entrance before half-flood, which would be another couple of hours, so I backtracked and anchored on the ‘Shelf’ opposite Felixstowe Container Terminal. That would not have been my first choice. Too much activity. But the next day I was able to up-anchor and head up the Stour for a more secluded anchorage off Sutton Ness.

It took over a week for the novelty to begin to wear off, and at that point I called in at Harwich, tying up at the Ha’penny Pier to do some necessary shopping, then sailing round to anchor in the Walton Backwaters. It became my habit to anchor for a day, or perhaps two, somewhere like the Backwaters, Pyefleet Creek, or one of the anchorages like ‘The Rocks’ on the Deben, before moving on. Then, after about a week, I’d call at Harwich, or Maldon, or Woodbridge, to stock up on provisions before heading out again.

I can’t say that actually sailing Tranquillity was a particularly peaceful activity – the value was more in concentrating my mind off ‘the small stuff’ – but she took me to places where I could begin to appreciate the infinite variety of day to day nature and the slow changing of the seasons. I gradually reduced the time I spent reading, in favour of sitting in the cockpit, usually with a mug of coffee or tea, just watching and listening. There was always something; waders on the mud, terns fishing, hovering briefly then suddenly plunging into the murky water to emerge, usually with some small fish. At the end of September, I watched an Osprey wheeling overhead, as it paused in its annual migration from Scotland or Cumbria, to Africa for the winter.

The Arctic and Little Terns left about that time, then towards the end of October so did the Common Terns. The Brent Geese started to arrive about the same time, their honking, with a little imagination, saying their name; ‘Branta Branta, Branta Branta.’ I knew that I would be hearing that sound throughout the autumn and winter seasons.

That was also the time I began to really need some heat in the little cabin. While I could use diesel oil in the heater, I preferred to get some bags of smokeless fuel, which I had delivered and stored with Brian. I also began to pay for a mooring sometimes, and using the opportunity to ride Brian to explore first Essex, then Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and Norfolk. On board, I could light the small solid-fuel stove; often burning off-cuts of wood from the boatyards. That stove could keep the cabin cosy in the coldest weather, and I could boil the kettle and cook on it as well, which saved on the propane.

I got through that first winter well enough. Okay, I spent quite a bit of the time holed up in the cosy cabin of my boat reading, and I began to write about what I saw around me. The solar panel and wind powered generator were ample for my needs, to charge the laptop and keep the lights burning, plus a little for the radio. If I was on a mooring so I could get into town – usually Maldon – then I would often spend most of a day in the library, warm, dry and entertained.

It was clear by the time the geese left in early April that I was going to have to think about earning some money. I wasn’t really short, yet, but it was obvious that my situation wasn’t sustainable indefinitely. Tranquillity was in good shape, but boats have been described as ‘holes in the water into which you throw money’. I can’t remember who paraphrased Kenneth Grahame with ‘There is nothing, absolutely nothing, quite so expensive as simply messing about in boats’, but it’s true. Of course I wasn’t just simply messing about in boats. Tranquillity was my home. Still, for the present I wasn’t hurting. I’d have the summer, then think about what I could do – labouring in the boatyards, perhaps.

June McCoy came into my life in, well, late June. I was in Maldon, Saturday morning, tied up at the visitor’s pontoon and putting provisions away after a third hike to Tesco’s, my big rucksack about as much as I could lift.

“Hello? Tranquillity?” It was a nice voice – a sweet soprano – and I left the bag where it was to go see.

Tranquillity was level with the pontoon, and I was looking up into bright blue eyes. The eyes were set in an oval face, framed in short, curly, mid-brown hair. While far from scruffy, her jeans and off-shore jacket, which was open, revealing a white t-shirt beneath, had obviously seen some wear. She had on deck-shoes.

“Can I help you?” Well, what else could I say?

“Could I have a word with you?”

I shrugged. “Sure. Would you like coffee? Tea? I’m afraid I don’t keep cold drinks on board, except some beer, and bottled water.”

“Thanks! Coffee would be good, if that’s okay.”

“Come aboard, then, while I put the kettle on.”

She stepped over adroitly enough, and dumped a sixty-litre rucksack at the rear of the cockpit. Once the kettle was on, I poked my head out of the hatch. “Sorry – I forgot to say I don’t keep fresh milk, only UHT. Is that okay?”

“UHT is fine, but I’ll drink it black unless you have some open.”

“Good enough. I don’t use milk much. Cooking, porridge, cocoa sometimes.”

She nodded, and I returned below to play with paper coffee-filters and coffee grounds, returning to the cockpit bearing two mugs of black coffee. “I didn’t ask,” I said, “but do you want sugar?”

She smiled. “No, thanks. This is fine.” She sipped, and blew on the surface of the coffee to help it cool.

For myself, I like my coffee hot, and have been accused of possessing an asbestos mouth. Actually, I just sip my way slowly down; the hotter it is, the longer the pleasure lasts. “So,” I prompted after a while, “while I’m enjoying your company, you did say you wanted to talk to me.”

She grinned, and nodded. “I’m a student at UEA,” (the University of East Anglia, which has campuses all over the area), “and I live in Maldon. I’ve seen your boat, and you, now and again. I was wondering if you might be interested in shipping a crew? I’m a Competent Crew,”

“I sail solo,” I said, matter-of-factly, watching her carefully.

Her face fell a little. “I just thought you might be interested in maybe sailing a little further afield, had you someone to share the watches.”

“I might,” I admitted. “You should know I’m just a dinghy sailor who chose to teach myself keel-boats. You trust me?”

Her smile strengthened again, and the day seemed brighter. “You may not be aware of it, but you’ve been watched. You are careful, sail competently, obeying the rules. Perhaps more importantly to some, you pay your bills promptly without arguments.”

“You’re an attractive young woman,” I commented, “so ... why do you want to set off with an unemployed thirty-plus boat-bum?”

“Adventure?” She quirked an eyebrow at me. “I’m not afraid of you. I’ve done some summer sailing, but I thought perhaps ... a little further afield?”

I didn’t know how to deal with all this. I shrugged. “Come and take a look round. I’ve just finished stocking up, but if there’s going to be two of us we’ll need more food.” I led the way below, pointed out the quarter-bunks, the lockers, navigation equipment, sea-toilet and wet-locker, fo’c’sle berth. “The storage is full, but we can fill one of the quarter-bunks as well.”

“Why not use both quarter-bunks?” she asked, “there’s plenty of room forward for two.” I looked at her. “You’re not gay, I suppose?”

“No ... I just...”

“Don’t worry. I’m not looking for anything permanent.” She paused, then went on brightly, “Suppose we do that shopping?”

She left her rucksack in the cabin and led me to a little Ka, into which I folded my six foot one with less difficulty than I expected. In Tesco’s we filled two trolleys with food and bottled water and at the checkout she insisted on paying. “I can’t afford to pay my passage, but there’s no reason for you to feed me.”

Once we’d loaded everything on board Tranquillity, June took her car home to park it safely. By the time she was back, it was past one o’clock. There were four or five hours of the flood to run before we could move off, so we quickly heated up some stew from a tin, with new potatoes and carrots, ate it whilst poring over charts, washed up and made some sandwiches for later. We decided to get downstream and anchor, rather than go straight into a night passage.

I had, of course, checked all the rigging and fittings as well as I could for security, but I gave June a tour; a second check is never a bad idea. Water and diesel were both pegged and the bilge dry. With a light north-westerly wind, we cast off over the last of the flood just after five in the afternoon. With all plain sail – mainsail, the big Genoa and jib, we were able to make two or three knots, perhaps two knots over the ground. It was a good slant of wind, but it necessitated a gybe as we turned just past the end of the quay, then another just past Earl Brythnoth, and again at Herring point.

We met S.B. Hydrogen under power in Collier’s Reach, passing Heybridge, and at Hilly Pool Point we were on a dead run – the wind from directly astern – down to Osea. The uninitiated might think that would be easy, but it’s actually the least stable point of sailing, with the risk of an unintentional gybe if the wind shifts a little. I watched the burgee – the little flag at the masthead indicating the wind direction – anxiously.