Stephen Squirrell (34966km):
2566 days ago 1 categories  The NW wind is offshore at Felixstowe so I had two options, the 25 miles to the River Stour at Bradfield or the 6-mile trip to the River Orwell at Levington. As I have just cleaned the van and had new wheels fitted I didn't fancy the longer journey to Bradfield as the road down to the river is a bumpy, muddy nightmare so headed to Levington instead. With low water on the Orwell we were not in a hurry to get there so had time for a couple of chapters before breakfast, chop some wood for the fire and set off at ten with Mag coming along:)
I managed to park close by the River to the right and squeeze my trailer beside a huge crane. With the wind, slightly off and gusty it didn't look a short board day so took a chance with 8.5 on the raceboard. I left Mag with her knitting with a nice view and sailed out of the marina channel in cool cloudy conditions:( I had one run down towards the Docks but ran out of wind so turned to beat up river to Pin Mill which was really nicely powdered up on the rail, good fun in the river chop! I considered continuing to the Orwell Bridge but the wind got gusty so I pulled the mast track back, let off the sail and started reaching back to Levington. It was planning most of the way, really good fun despite the cold hands!
I sailed past Mag to the wide corner and had a few runs to try and improve my average but having fast today so returned to the van after 2hrs. 30 mins non-stop to find Mag chatting to windsurfing friend Mark Swain who was at the marina with his family in their yacht. Out of the wetsuit, a welcome warming cuppa with a couple of hot cross buns:) then with the gear packed away we left the trailer at the marina driving to Orwell Park in Ipswich to see if the bluebells were out. We walked into the lovely woods and were greeted by the amazing sight of bluebells everywhere, just stunning:) We continued down to the River Orwell near the bridge, with the tide high having just turned there was very little beach left to walk on. It is very pretty down here but it was soon ruined when we came across a huge amount of litter left by a group of mindless oafs, there is little hope left in this world when people just toss their lager cans and takeaway packet all over the place :( We couldn't just walk past so Mag and I collected three carrier bags of rubbish which we took home to re-cycle.
Back to pick up the trailer and head for home past some stunning yellow fields of rapeseed. A top day was had by all :)
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