Stephen Squirrell (34966km):
2728 days ago  A day that promised so much delivered absolutely nothing :( The forecast said winds 20/30 kts from the west, sunny and mild too. Several were going to Point Clear which is 40 miles to travel and I nearly went to Levington being only 6 miles! On arriving at Point Clear at just before 10 things looked good with winds gusting to 27 mph but not a great direction, coming from Mersea Island, which was always going to make the wind gusty:( Most seemed to go for 7.8 and again I was the guinea pig being first on the water. I wobbled to the shingle bank on my 133lt, and as usual the wind had disappeared!!! I waited for a while for it to fill in which it didn't so I wobbled back. I now had a choice, rig 8.5 or swap to the 147 lt. I went for the bigger board hoping that the wind would fill in and it was better in the light winds. I sailed up past the lagoon towards Jaywick but there was no wind that way. I then tried up the River Colne as it looked breezy up the river. Not much wind just loads of floating weed:( My sail didn't feel right in the gusts and the harness lines were wrong so I landed on Mersea Island to make adjustments. Then we had a few gusts and I broke 20 kts a few times but they were short lived and quite vicious when they hit. The gusts were only by the island and there was next to no wind where you thought it would be, out in the open sea towards Jaywick. This meant there was little wind in the lagoon so I didn't bother going in. The highlight of day was the many hundreds of wading birds along the foreshore:) I should have gone to Levington, at least if I had a crap day the round trip would have been 12 miles instead of the 80 miles I did! So a 1 star session, one of the worst of the year – should have gone to work!
PS – nice to meet up with some mates I haven’t seen for ages :)
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