Wells Next the Sea - Sea Palling - 9th October

A desperately grey and gusty day found me pinned to the pontoon by the wind; with few if any other boats on the move: other than two hardy folk out on lasers, having a ball. A fishing boat full of jolly anglers left at 6am and were back looking very pale and dejected by 7am!
   Today was going to be a tough one. The target a man made series of reefs at a place called Sea Palling; mentioned nowhere including Reeds and my pilot books. The reefs show on Google Earth; so they must be there. I managed to back off the pontoon and was swept out on a spring tide around an obstacle course of buoys. Wells bar is horrid; breaking waves on shallow banks are very uncomfortable and with the tide now on the nose; along with the wind, it took me ages to clear. It rather forget the next 5 hours of uncomfortable motoring; but eventually I rounded the nose of Norfolk; enough to first hoist the mainsail, that added half a knot, then the staysail and finally the jib, as the wind came good – being directly from the East. But just as the wind came good so the tide turned foul for the second time; now heading North with me heading South! Motor sailing in lumpy sea is wet business and I arrived thoroughly cold, damp and tired just as it started to get dark. The only highlight was a tiny little green tit that blipped into the cockpit, after blipping around the stern railing and seagull engine for 20 seconds looking for a perch. Eventually it landed in the cockpit, warily looked at me with one black shiny eye, before pooing on my marmite sandwich that I'd onlys just retreived from the fridge. Off it went without even a sorry! Sandwich over the side!
   The gap between the fifth and sixth reef is marked with cardinals but once through you only have a couple of meters of depth to play with. I picked my spot, dropped the anchor and as it bit quickly realised I was not going to get any sleep; Equinox being thrown all over the place as she tugged this way and that on her anchor. An anchor snubber helped take the worst out of the jolts; but not by much. I felt sick too, as soon as I went below, so listened to music and hung on in the cockpit drinking the warm remains of a thermos of coffee. The hours dragged by; the spring tide making the reefs almost redundant; incoming swell passing over it; covering me with foam. What a battering we both took. By 5am I’d had enough. Time to get on the move and make the best of the flood tide.