Boulogne – June 05

22 miles to Boulogne

It is impossible to have a rigid itinerary when cruising on a small vessel. It all depends on the weather. So many choices of forecast too! On the one hand, there was a storm alert on my phone. that woke me at 0300 warning of torrential rain and thunderstorms with risk to life. A quick check on the Met Office website advises of light winds from the east backing to the west later, BBC says north then west, but both say dry. Then there is Windfinder and XC Weather with still further variations but no storms. Then what about the sea state? Windfinder can scare me with their predictions. The Wallet, between the Blackwater and Orwell estuaries can be unpleasant with short steep seas. Often the waves are reported at rather less than a metre, but it is the short wave frequency that makes for lots of uncomfortable bouncing. So yesterday was very windy so surely some residual nastiness? The forecast was for 1.1 metre waves at a 6 second frequency and we can confidently say that today’s trip was so much better than with 0.7 metres and 3 seconds we experienced in the Wallet recently!

The trouble with forecasts is that they can give you an excuse to stay in port almost permanently but it was time to move on and enjoy moules et frites in old Boulogne. Contrast our caution with the crew of the tired looking little 10 metre Belgian yacht that we moored up alongside today. Mum, Dad and 2 children of about 4 and 5. They sailed down from Dunkirk yesterday in all that wind making it ‘difficult to steer into the ‘arbour’. And this is the start of their 2 year (maybe 6) circumnavigation of the globe. Now that’s intrepid, although numerous other adjectives could be more apt!

Boulogne marina

Moules et frites

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