Chapter 6

Pre-dawn, the motor running as Simone and I moved around dealing with the shore-lines; all of us wrapped up against the chill of the morning. Simone neatly coiling the last spring as I carefully backed out of our berth ... getting clear out into the estuary and Kelly hoisting the smaller of my two Genoa staysails as Simone got the main up. I watched from the cockpit as they both swigged on halyards to get the sails up the last bit then turned to deal with the jib. Almost before I knew it, we were sailing and I shut the motor down. Blessed silence, but for the swish of water under the forefoot.

Two ladies, one tall and slim (even wrapped up in layers and oilskins) one much shorter. Kelly's hair in a braid emerging from under her stocking hat.

"Breakfast, everyone? Coffee?" Kelly cheerful, enthusiastic.

"Wonderful," I said.

"Yes, please," Simone added, and Kelly went below. Simone fussed with the sheets, adjusting the set of the sails. "Better than sex," she said, scanning.

"I don't know I'd go that far," I smiled, "but it's pretty good, I agree."

Kelly called us and Simone went below for her porridge, then relieved me at the wheel. Kelly was frying sausages as I ate; she handed me a sausage and egg sandwich with a mug of coffee. "Eat up. Simone's will be ready when you've finished."

When I got up again she topped off my travel mug and I went out to take over from Simone again. "This could really work," I thought. My thoughts changed somewhat later; Simone relieved me at the wheel at oh-one-hundred, placing a mug in the clip by the wheel and wedging a flask in the corner of the seat at the side of the cockpit.

"Go to your girl, Skipper," she said with a giggle.

In the saloon I climbed out of my oilies and boots and hung them in the wet-locker, not that they were wet. In our cabin, I stripped off the outer layers and placed them neatly where I could find them in the dark, and slipped into bed with Kelly. Oh, my ... I wasn't really cold, but she wrapped herself round me and it felt like laying next to a furnace. Soft and warm, sweet-smelling ... wonderful. The next thing I knew was my watch bleeping in my ear.

Oh five hundred, relieving Simone so she could sleep. Sipping tepid coffee from a flask, waiting for the dawn. Farsight was sailing sweetly with a quartering wind, making near enough seven knots at times. The horizon was lightening as Kelly appeared with a mug of hot coffee.

"Breakfast in a few minutes," she said, stretching up to kiss me.

"Great stuff, Beloved," I said, kissing her back before correcting our course. Okay, I could have engaged the autohelm, but steering kept me awake. We'd covered just over a hundred and fifty miles in our first twenty-four hours. She came out to take over for me while I went below. She'd put a damp cloth on the table to stop the plate sliding and the coffee jug was in the sink. Breakfast was excellent; there's nothing better than a cooked breakfast when you've been helming a yacht since five in the morning in the North Atlantic in winter. Anyway ... relax, I'm not going to relate a blow-by-blow account of our crossing ... I do want to tell you about our second day. Five o'clock – seventeen hundred, that is – Kelly glanced at Simone who moved to take over at the helm, then took me by the elbow.

"Time to get your head down, Skipper," she said, pulling me towards the hatch.

I had to admit I was quite tired. However, when we got to our cabin, sleeping wasn't the first thing on her mind. Of course, she'd had a good eight hours the previous night, though disturbed by me joining her in the middle of it. Clothes were neatly piled in two piles by the door and, naked, we got under the duvet. Oh ... she was hot. And I don't just mean her skin was hot. Over the next hour she managed to drain me of two lots of vital fluids. I wasn't aware of her leaving the bed and dressing in order to prepare a hot meal for Simone.

Kelly woke me again at twenty-thirty. She had a sizzling hot burger and beans ready for me, along with more coffee and a flask for later.

Which more or less set the pattern, though Simone and I did switch watches. It was nice to go to bed to make love to and sleep with Kelly, even though I had to get up at oh-one-hundred to do my share. But Kelly, the darling, warmed me up when I got back four hours later. I still don't know, she's never said, if she actually woke when I crawled cold into bed with her.

Four days out of Halifax, five hundred and fifty miles, having more or less followed the forty-fifth parallel, we were able to alter course a little to the north, to follow a great-circle route to the English Channel.

We several times had to reduce sail as the winds approached gale force, but managed to maintain a five-knot average. I emphasise average, as our speed varied tremendously. Weather systems move west to east in the Atlantic and they are predominantly depressions. Not absolutely all, but on that crossing we encountered no anticyclones. We did get the south part of several depressions – westerly winds, of course, up to forty knots with five to six metre waves – and I was very, very grateful for Simone's presence, skill and knowledge.

Which is in no way a criticism of Kelly. If we'd been on our own, we'd have taken longer and been a lot less comfortable. As it was, she cooked and brewed tea and coffee for us; almost every day, no mean feat in the circumstances. I think she was just as grateful she didn't have to stand four-hour watches at the helm. I may be wrong.

Okay. We left Halifax on the twelfth of December. On Christmas Day, we were somewhere between Iceland and the Azores. Perhaps I should have aimed to break the passage in the Azores. But I didn't. (Shrug. Perhaps Kelly and Simone will forgive me one day – I promised them a really good dinner when we got back to England.) We entered the Channel on the second of January. When we sighted Lizard Point, I offered to put Simone ashore at any of the Channel ports, but she just smiled.

"I'd rather stay, if that's alright. You're aiming for Harwich?"

"In the first instance, yes. It's not the only place I can clear customs and immigration, or the first by a long shot, but it's where I'm from. My flat in Ipswich is let, so I'll have to find somewhere else; my berth at Shotley may not be available ... but that's where my roots are."

"My base is Harwich. That makes sense for me, too. Not that I'm in a hurry to leave you..." I looked at her, eyebrows raised, and she smiled. "Don't worry," she went on, "I've seen the way you look at Kelly ... not to mention the way she looks at you. I know I don't have a prayer of getting between you."

"You're a very attractive woman," I demurred.

She laughed. "Not enough. Not enough by far. You know, pride is supposed to be a vice, isn't it? Yet it's pride that stops me from competing with Kelly."

"Pride ... or moral standards?"

She turned serious. "Thank you, Skipper. Perhaps it's both." She turned and went below, returning shortly after with Kelly in tow; she pointed out the land on the horizon. "There you are, Kelly – your first sight of England."

Kelly was wide-eyed. "Are we there, then?"

"Sorry, Love," I told her, "We've got another four hundred miles or so to go."

"I guess I'd better feed you guys, then," she said. Lunch in twenty minutes or so." She turned and went below, though not without a glance at the grey smudge on the horizon.

With a fresh south-westerly driving Farsight under all plain sail, twenty-four hours saw us off Weymouth, though we were too far out to actually see land. We did see a Condor Ferry crossing to the Channel Islands. A timely reminder to keep our eyes open in the very busy waters of the English Channel, not that Simone or I really needed it.

Another twenty-four hours saw us off Brighton – a couple of hours later we saw Beachy Head. Eight o' clock that evening, we were off Dungeness, though of course it was only the light that proved it. Listening to the Shipping Forecast after midnight, as we approached Folkestone, though, we had confirmation of what I had been expecting with the barometer dropping and the wind picking up; a gale was on the way.

Simone appeared to relieve me and I suggested anchoring in the Downs to ride it out. The Downs, near the coast between Deal and Ramsgate, is an anchorage sheltered from westerly winds. With the Goodwin Sands off to the East, shoals to the north of the Isle of Thanet blocking direct access to the Thames, plus commercial shipping lanes, there were hazards aplenty ahead.

She frowned, shrugged, then nodded. "Anchor watch, though," she suggested.

"Absolutely," I agreed. "And I'll stay up while we transit the Straits of Dover."

We dropped my big plough anchor a little after oh six hundred on the fifth of January, added the kedge, and made sure – as best we could – of the anchor holding by setting fifty metres of chain; as much as I'd ever used. I then slipped into bed in my thermals. I didn't stir when Kelly climbed over me at dawn and allowed Simone to get some rest.