Winter Sailing On The Mersey

By James

Christmas, New Year, Winter... none are an excuse not to be sailing, even in the UK!

A sunny day sailing in the Irish Sea

Deciding not to slow down for a minute over these darker months, we have been carrying on with the sailing. Going out yesterday we had a great day of training to approach a mooring buoy in strong tides and cross winds, and all of this without using the engine. It is interesting to watch the realisation in people when they comprehend just how powerful the tide can be around the UK, especially on the Mersey. Yesterday was a spring tide (highest high tide and lowest low tide) so they were very strong indeed, but we are used to being pulled around at five knots on this river, so no surprise there. What was a surprise however was the weather. After a brief gust the wind settled down gently and so did the sea, and out came glorious sunshine for most of the day! It wasn't quite Greece but it certainly made us all feel that it was worth the effort to come out. We sailed around quite happily for a few hours while the tide allowed us before returning to the marina and our berth. Was it eventful? No. Did it need to be? No. Somebody once said that the best sailing trips never get spoken about because they are uneventful. That makes sense to me.

Actually it still surprises me how little it takes to move people to a place outside of their normality. When we set up Sea Clan I had planned all sorts of adventures to take people on far flung adventures to get them far enough outside of their normal environment, but I needn't have worried. Although we do have some great adventures, I have now seen how many people feel it is an adventure simply coming to the marina and being on the boat, let alone going out to sea. And then there are the people I have taken out who have lived in Liverpool all of their life but never seen the docks and the city from this perspective.

Liverpool from the river Mersey

Basically every time anybody goes to sea it is an adventure whether crossing oceans or sailing around a local cove. And everything we do is an adventure because it involves old and new friends, people from very different backgrounds, different stories, and of course nature itself never allows any two days to be the same anyway. It is being able to live every single day of your life.

It would be safe to say then that on this boat we are all looking for adventure. We are all looking out for one another. And we are all committed to a better way of life than what was handed out to us. And here's to no excuses for anything less.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness... Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime".

Mark Twain