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Burnham Rally 23-25 May 2009

 

A total of four boats left Queenborough on Saturday morning at 09.00, and headed out towards Havengore creek. The day was warm and the breeze light. This meant we had to motor sail most of the way, though we did make very good time.

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  I made my way in as soon as we had passed the obstructions west of the creek entrance, and even though I did cut the sands a little the depth gauge did not drop below 1.6 until we were approaching the broom way.

All the boats got through even though the depth did appear to go below 0.6 at times. As we made our way through the withies I called the bridge, and he nicely opened it as we got there.

 The trip through the creek into the Roach and finally the Crouch was very relaxing, and I was beginning to wonder how I could write this trip up without anything going wrong. 

Entering the finger berth at Burnham marina was a little rough due to breeze taking us off of the finger, but other than that we all docked up safely. Looking at the time we realised that we had enough time to get to the cream tea shop before it shut, and this made the perfect end to a great day. 

That evening Pete, Steve and the boy’s went out to eat, and Paul, Caroline and our selves met up with them after we had eaten on the boat.  

The plan for the following day as far as I was concerned was to do nothing but wander around Burnham, but Pete, Steve and Paul started blipping on about going for a sail up stream to Brandy Hole Yacht club. 

To be honest I wasn’t too exited about it as I was still in bed when Helen decided to drop in and make coffee. I was talked into taking the boat out and floating down stream (No wind) and using up my expensive diesel, and all without breakfast. 

We shoved off and slowly drifted down the Crouch with the tide. I didn’t know where we were going and was happy just to follow Pete. After much messing about trying to catch some wind that wasn’t there I saw Pete tie up to a pontoon. I took a place behind him and Mercury tied up next to me, while Gypsy ties up next to Pete.  

 

Text Box: Apparently when Pete first called up we were told we were banned, but they soon changed their minds and allowed us to tie up and have dinner in the club. Not long after sitting down we were presented with a toilet seat with the works Queenborough Yacht Club 1983 in gold writing. It appears previous members when visiting Brandy Hole always stole something, often furniture or fittings, and this toilet seat was stolen in retaliation during their last trip to Queenborough.  

 

After an excellent dinner we decided to go before the boats ran around in the falling tide. When we arrived back at Burnham we were wondering what to do next, and I was suggested we could go to the pictures.

 When we arrived at the picture house you immediately realise that it is basically an unchanged 1931 Rio. On entering the ticket office and kiosk is basically a hole in the wall. “Two tickets for Night in the Museum II, two large pop corns, a large bar of chocolate and a can of coke please”, I could hardly believe it when the figure I was looking at through the hole in the wall said, “£9.40 sir”. The auditorium where we decided to sit was done out in leather chairs, two and three seater settees.  

After the film we left and wandered down the street where we met up with Paul and Kerry in a pub. After leaving and finding our way back to the boat, we went to bed all thinking about our return trip through the Havengore.

Text Box: In fact there’s not much to say about the return trip. Both Jacana and Gypsy ran aground, but it was a rising tide and we were not held up for long. We had the usual no waiting time as the bridge lifted as we approached and through we went.  Though there was little water (we left well early) we cleared the broom way and had a gentle cruise back, even if we had to use the motor due to little wind.