I had another Car Club friend, Bob, and his son down fore the weekend.

We had an interesting sail round to Felixstowe.

We were hard on the wind with the tide under us.

There where some quite large seas and we had a bit of a bashing.

As we approached the harbour and where planing to cross the main slipping channel there was a large container ship coming in so I decided to creep round inside the channel on the Felixstowe side.

this area was very choppy

Had to start the engine to get through the chop.

Just got clear and the engine stopped.

I did not want to start again.

I was sure that there was at least half a tank of fuel.

We had no option but to sail the best we could up the Orwell.

We picked up a buoy of Suffolk Yacht Harbour.

Bob likes nothing better than problem solving so we both started checking over the fuel supply and quickly found that the filter on the engine was blocked.

I had a spare on board so we soon got it sorted.

We where all feeling a bit battered after that so we decided to spend the night in Shotley Marina.

Bob was planing to find another way back to the Deben if the wind had not dropped by morning he had really not enjoyed the trip down the coast.

It was a bit calmer in the morning and following a light breakfast and topping up the fuel tank we locked out at 11:15 and went to see what it was like.

There were still some fair size waves but it was a lot less intimidating.

We were back on the mooring by 12:45 for a late lunch and then of home.

Mileage for the trip - 36.5

Mileage so far this year - 600.7