We’re still in Withstable: The weather is slowly getting better after four days of strong wind and heavy sea.
We tried to make good use of our time: Waiting may bring important gifts and help building relationships.
Not by chance, our boat was built inside the Lago Art Waiting Room, where Clodia shifted our point of view about many aspects of living.
The slowness of our travelling means waiting too, teaching how to be patient and how to listen. Less talking and more rest: That’s what happens in Withstable. We wait and listen to others.
During the days at Johnny Green’s place we have been charged with energy and entertained by amazing tales about The Clash: We discovered that they were closer to us than we thought, telling “you can do it too!” to the fans that were asking for autographs.
Johnny lives happy with his family, writing books about cycling.
His son Earl rides every day to Canterbury and back to teach English for foreigners. He’s a nice, clean and generous person, as well as Ginette, Ruby and Polly.
A very enriching family: all my thanks!
In the last days we’ve been treated like kings by the Withstable Yacht Club, who gave us a warm room to protect from the freezing cold wind (reaching 48 knot speed!). It’s a lot.
Whitstable has been our home for the last week: It seems a long but time just flew. Sometimes Johnny comes to visit, telling us new punk stories.
Then come along other friends that used to build boats for oyster fishing: They’re strong old men, a little ruby in their face and cheerful, but their noses look sad.
They show us wonderful pictures of the Withstable bay, full with hundreds of Oysters Smacks. What a boat, and what a magnificent art of building sailboats.
Joseph Conrad used to say that there are two kinds of men: those of sea and those of land (suggesting that the latter are lowlife at the most).
Today we’ve been in Faversham, along with Bob, a friend brought to us through Phyllis Poltock and her friend Caroline. In Bob’s shipyard we found lots of equipment for our boat that we couldn’t afford to buy elsewere, including two life vests for 20 pounds only and the radar reflector.
The shipyard is extraordinary: it houses hundreds of wooden boats, built from 1800 onwards.
Thames Barges, Oysters Smacks, strong ships built with an iron that “did not know rust yet”, as said by the great naval architect Carlo Sciarrelli.
It’s a boat lover paradise!
Tomorrow I’ll take my time to appreciate all of this: Jacopo will have to do his best to prevent me falling in love to some old yawl.
Faversham is a wonderful town, with many medieval and sixteen century houses. It was the first Roman city in England and it’s crossed by the Creek, a small canal, that is dried for six hours a day. The harbour is small but very important: Sometimes Henry VIII used to dock his fleet in the Creek. Here, as in Withstable, we meet many people that seem to come out from a Dickens’ tale.
Or maybe it’s just me seeing Dickens everywhere…
A public square, at last! In this corner of the earth the world “public square” doesn’t seem to exist. The streets have been built for fast walking through the chill wind.
There are pubs though, and there is beer. In Faversham you can see the oldest British brewery, Sheperd Neame, built in 1698. The smell of beer, hop and roasted malt pervades all the town. At first it seems bizarre, reminding one of chemicals, then you get used to it realising it’s a natural flavour.
We visited a pub run by a very interesting man: If you don’t drink his beer (and what a beer!) in the right way and showing appreciation, he just kicks you out… They say that if you order expensive beers and don’t behave, the next day he comes in front of your door (he seems to know where everyone lives…) leaving a note: “Don’t dare come back in my pub, you devil!”
He might be slightly mad, but in his pub we feel at home and the price is fair: apparently even Prince Charles comes here to enjoy a beer every now and then, taking care over how he behaves of course…
Tomorrow a BBC team will come to listen to our plans. An old fishermen told one of their reporters the story of two crazy men who are travelling toward Instanbul to talk about water protection. That’s the message that got through and the BBC found it interesting: It happens here. Fantastic, don’t you think?
Right now we are rested and happy. To all of you asking about when we’ll cross the Channel we have to answer: When the sea and the wind will say “yes”.
We still have to wait, for the weather and to find a skipper willing to sail the boat bought for the film crew by Paolo Muran, the documentary producer. We’ll soon mount an electric engine powered by SOLON solar panels, so we still need a bit of patience.
In our time schedule I planned that we could have waited up to the 15th of May before crossing the Channel: Hopefully we’ll meet this timing. We have to apologise to Michele and Francesca who are waiting for us in Calais: We’re sorry, on the sea it’s a different story.
Tomorrow we’ll go to Faversham. We’ve been Whitstable Yacht Club’s guests for far too long and we’re embarassed by their generosity.
See you soon. Viva il Kent!
We have to cope with a painful separation: Our hearts are broken when we decide to leave behind our stove. Clodia is overloaded already and we have to make sure it’s reliable and light enough for Channel crossing.
Sticking to the spell that seems to have been cast over us lately, in the last two miles before destination the wind is our enemy: either it drops or it gets far too strong.
Our days pass by working on Clodia and meeting lots of nice people.
Whitstable is a beautiful city, lived by kind people. It has seen the world’s first railway line, in 1830, the “Canterbury and Whitstable Railway”. What a place to stop for a project about sustainable travelling!
We leave Erith under a cloudy sky: Shortly afterwards it rains. We travel fast, by using both the Mainsail and the Mizzen, keeping a seven-knot speed. The stream kindly gives us three and a half of them.
The wind changes, hitting our noses, and the sea gets bigger. We try to pinch for about an hour, gaining half a mile: Then the stream changes and the wind gets stronger yet.
In a few minutes we are landed. James Bell, the Club’s Commodore, with a few fellows come to greet us with great kindness, offering to moor Clodia to a close boa. I go alone: Jacopo will come to pick me up shortly afterwards, aboard a little dinghy.
In a blink of an eye, Jacopo re-emerges, swearing as I never heard him before! He’s so upset that he turns up the dinghy by sheer anger, and swims toward me pulling it. I come close to let him get aboard Clodia (hypothermia is not unlikely under these conditions), steering with an oar towards shore and towing the dinghy full of water.
We sleep as children, then in the morning Tim wakes us up (
Thanks Isle of Sheppey Sailing Club. You are our friends.
Let me apologize for being so late, but things have been quite intense over the past few days.
While crossing the Greenwich meridian we are greeted by a nice side wind and we can raise the Main Sail, at last. It seems a good omen, but shortly afterwards the wind changes back and hits our noses… 
Then, after Tilbury, the Thames returns to look more natural, despite the industrialization process has left its footprints in several ways. We are downstream for all six hours of navigation: Its power pushes us toward the sea, notwithstanding the opposite wind.
Yes, of course!
Then we fire up the stove to cook an unsalted cous-cous (we don’t own any salt whatsoever): At last we jump into the tent and over the glorious mattresses made by Stefania Carniato of Imbotex, for a memourable sleep.
We have made it! We are in London, under Tower Bridge (which, seen from below is not as pretty as I’d hoped!).
Clodia is super! A few minor outfitting jobs and we’re ready to face the Channel.
Even at St Katharine Docks, a fabulous mooring below the London Bridge where we are surrounded by luxury boats, people are very friendly. They come to see Clodia and talk to us, both astonished and happy. We get thanked for what we are doing: It makes us feel good.
Now I’m in Ali’s house, an old university fellow of mine. His generosity and hospitality has moved our hearts. Thanks for everything, forever, to Ali and his wife Anne, great friends.
Before that to happen, I want to thank the fishes, the sky, the air and the wind of this gentle and generous Country.
