A kindling of clouds

Sunday morning, high water Portishead was due for 0542. At 0530 we cast off and motored out into the night through a marina lock in free-flow; a rare treat.

The brightly lit waterfront of Portishead fell away astern. The night was black and moonless, the stars scattered bright and glittering in the inky sky overhead. No wind, the sea was smooth except for the churns and boils of the turning tide stirring the turgid, dark waters.

Mainsail aloft, we motor-sailed down channel, following the building ebb past the Clevedon shore through the darkness on our own apparent wind, the stars above slowing dimming as the first light of dawn began to bleed into the sky. In the beginning, it was just a faint lightening of the gloom, and then a gentle, tangerine hue seeped gradually into the eastern horizon, the quality of light slowly, surreptitiously beginning to change. The air took on an amber glow as the sun crept inevitably, inextricably closer to our horizon, snuffing out the last few remaining, stubbornly resisting stars as it came.

A kindling of clouds above the hilly shoreline now lying astern lit aflame in a gorgeous splash of fiery orange as the sun rose and bloodied the sky about us. And as it did, the waters of the channel ruffled with the first touch of wind, our little boat leaning pliantly to the building breeze as, finally, I stilled the engine and we began to sail.

It was great sailing. A couple of hours of beating into a stiff breeze under full sail, tacking on each lift. The boat was heeled to twenty degrees or so, our speed through the relatively unruffled dawn waters between three to four knots, a not disrespectful pace upwind for an old Westerly Griffon.

We made Cardiff for 0930, entering the Barrage against the tide of a large flotilla of racing yachts making their way out, and moored up alongside Mermaid Quay for a couple of hours whilst we found a somewhat expensive but exquisitely cooked full English breakfast at one of the quayside restaurants.

Low water Cardiff was expected for 1140. We locked out at 1230, Barrage Control advising there were a couple of meters of water over the lock sill but warning some of that would be silt and they expected there'd be less still in the outer harbour. We chanced it anyway, on the grounds that the making tide would lift us off soon enough if we got it wrong, and picked our way out through the mud-banks without any mishap.

The flood tide stole any pressure from what little wind there might have been. We reluctantly motor-sailed, our apparent wind enough to fill the main, the tide doing the bulk of the work in taking us home. Whilst it wasn't sailing, we were afloat, and the sky was spectacular, smeared with broken, wind sculpted cloud and lit with the last of the late autumn sun. In the far distance towards the Holms I could see the myriad, scattered sails of the racing fleet we'd passed on the way in to Cardiff. I was glad, for today at least, we were not racing ourselves.

We made Portishead a little ahead of 1530, loitered in the Hole for a short while before locking back in at 1545 and making our way back to our berth.

A good day to have been afloat.