Getting to the Blackwater rally last August, from my base in Walton, was bound to be a problem since the tides would be running against me throughout the day. However, I was encouraged to try by a forecast of an easterly breeze for the morning and left at 9am. The breeze was due to veer later that day to the south-west, but before very long it had gone round to south-east and, an hour later, to west of south. What’s more, it faded from a comfortable F3 down to a F1. Making it over a foul tide with such a light headwind simply wasn’t on. So, after covering only 4 miles in three hours of Micawberish sailing, I upped helm to head instead in a north-easterly direction to the Rivers Ore and Alde. In these light winds, I figured, there’d be no difficulty crossing the bar, and it would be a gentle, relaxing weekend.

We passed the Deben entrance about 1400 and reached the Orford Haven Buoy by 1600 — an hour after low water and a good time to enter. The day so far had been sunny and clear, and although the forecasters had mentioned the possibility of odd thundery showers, I’d given no thought to this until the sky begun to cloud over and the breeze got back to a south-west F3.

A couple of large yachts were hove to in the vicinity, obviously waiting for more water before entering and I joined them, eyes glued to the binoculars, searching for the newly placed red and green buoys that mark the gap between the constantly shifting sandbanks. I saw the red all right, but no green anywhere. Maybe, I thought, it simply lay behind, just out of view, and I’d find it as I neared the red. However, I judged it prudent to wait and watch someone else go in first. And we would probably have been all right if the wind hadn’t continued to rise through the Beaufort scale.

Coincidentally, the sky darkened more until even the red buoy became barely visible, and I knew I must get over that bar sooner rather than later. So, trusting I’d find the green and turn before we hit the sands, I headed The Genie in with her jib reefed and the main eased well off. Having only a 2’ draft, she was bound to be OK, I kept telling myself, but confidence ebbed away, especially as the wind seemed to grow stronger by the minute. Moreover, the closer in we got, the clearer conditions on the bar became. Only one word described them — frightening. And as we neared the red, with still no sign of the green, I could see only confused, white and very wild water.

A great fear seemed to overtake me at this point. The boat was behaving magnificently and I wanted to press on because there would be enough water, the green buoy would show itself, I felt sure. But logic was overwhelmed and I chickened out, turned, and headed The Genie back to the Haven buoy to wait again.

I tried to calm down, telling myself that this blow couldn’t possibly last much longer, it had come from nowhere after all. We’d simply wait and follow one of the larger boats in. Another good, logical idea, except that the wind continued its rise. The sky had turned an inky black and there was simply no sign of a let up. Indeed as I waited, everything pointed to it getting worse — and it did.

The jib had been almost completely rolled up and she was slowly forereaching under it and her eased off main. Very soon the wind started to really shriek and I knew I should reef further. Pulling down her first slab in the main eased her, but within five minutes or so, she was protesting again and I rolled in her second. By the time she was happy and I looked around, the larger boats were gone. I was on my own.

At this point I guessed the windspeed to be a good F6, and I confess to being thoroughly shaken. Stupidly, I seemed to have got myself out on a limb. There was no bolt hole. Seven miles to the north, and downwind, lay Southwold — a port I have never entered before. Clearly, these were not the conditions to try. Four miles to the south lay the Deben, but it’s bar would be as inhospitable as the Ore’s. That only left Harwich — at least 8 to 10 miles of windward sailing. There was nowhere else. It was Hobson’s choice. But in these conditions?

With her double reefed main and a scrap of jib, The Genie was probably carrying less sail than a reefed Mirror dinghy, but when I gingerly hauled in the mainsheet, she simply got on with it. How she does it I don’t know, as she’s no slim, sleek, racing dinghy. Indeed, her lines appear to have been drawn using a pot-bellied Sumo wrestler as a model! But, she was amazing. I’ve worked her to windward several times in horrible conditions, but I reckon these were the worst she’d been asked to handle. Seas came over the bow and across the cabin top and there was constant spray up to the crosstrees, but she kept plugging. I began to relax — just a little — and tried to work out what had made me so frightened — because that’s what I had been. The conditions at the bar were frightening but, I had to admit to myself, I was frightened by them. Not the boat — bless her, but me.

By the time the Woodbridge Haven buoy came into sight, about an hour later, the breeze began to moderate and the sky seemed to have lost it’s menace. At one point, I even thought of going back and trying the Orford bar again, but my stomach knotted at the very prospect. I contented myself by shaking out one reef from the main. We still had a long way to go after all and more speed wouldn’t go amiss. Then, just as we approached the Deben, the clouds began to roll back and the wind dropped still further. I shook out the remaining reef and tentatively unrolled most of the jib. My storm in a teacup appeared to be over.

A short way past the Woodbridge Haven buoy, it dropped yet again, quite suddenly, to about a F1/2. The western horizon cleared and it dawned on me, that in this light breeze, even with the friendly flood helping me, it would take a long time to get back to Harwich — let alone into a snug anchorage in the river beyond. But, on the other hand, the Deben was under my lee… I decided to try for it and turned back… and we succeeded, slipping quietly over the bar, between the rustling banks of shingle, feeling the twist of the spiralling tide rips, and finally dropping anchor inside, close under the Bawdsey shore at 1900. My third choice of river was a good one. The first had been unattainable, the second inhospitable. This one had been just right, rather like the three bears’ porridge. And it was time to open my grub box — I was a hungry as any bear.

On Sunday, dried out and refreshed from a good night’s sleep, I decided to sail up the Deben. It’s a pretty little river, with the emphasis on ‘little’ — only 7 miles from Bawdsey to Woodbridge. High water would be about 1130 and we were underway by 0900 in a F2 WNW’ly, with a cloudless sky. From time to time the breeze fell light and our progress owed more to the tide’s push than the sail’s pull. And since there isn’t much of the Deben that’s not covered with moored yachts, I had my hand on the engine starter cord more than once as we were propelled towards some large, shiny and expensive looking piece of GRP. But we managed without it and sailed until the new ebb started to take back the few yards the sails had painstakingly gained for us. It was time to return towards the mouth.

I didn’t expect to be back at Bawdsey until late afternoon and planned to anchor there and take the first of the ebb out next morning. But the sky partially clouded and the afternoon breeze rose a little with the result that we were off Bawdsey again by 1330. So instead of spending the remainder of the day at anchor, I decided to go out and return to Walton.

By this time the wind had returned to its home in the south-west, which meant tacking out over the bar. However, there was plenty of water and apart from the usual lumpy sea, we crossed the bar easily at 1400 to greet the north-flowing ebb as we turned south. Even that wasn’t a problem. With enough breeze — and we had enough — The Genie has a habit of adopting a “What tide?” attitude, and she confidently worked over it, with the whole suit of sails drawing and the gun’l gurgling away down to leeward. It was a great sail.

The sky darkened a bit more on the way, we had a brief shower, and the breeze became quite variable. Once past the Harwich entrance, we located the channel to Walton and tacked down between exposed sands. The fluky winds were even more noticeable here, rising and falling, veering and backing. Twice I changed tack without seeming to change boat direction. And on the third occasion, in the narrowest stretch, the wind veered, catching the jib aback, and gusted with such ferocity that the boat began to heel. For a moment it crossed my mind that I’d have something to contribute to the capsize debate in the Bulletin. Even her 400 lbs of ballast didn’t look as if it could stop her. What angle she reached, I don’t know, as it all happened too quickly to register, but I know that when it was all over, the ash which had lain on the sidedeck from a carelessly knocked out pipe, was washed away. And what did I do? I calmly pulled myself up the cockpit to what was now the weather side, yanked the jib sheet from its cleat and let if fly. Then I — just as calmly — pulled in the new lee sheet and sailed on towards my destination without so much as a missed heartbeat. It was the third such change and I was lucky again.

Thinking through all this afterwards, over a quiet pint and a pipe, I decided that there’s no automatic link between fear and danger. Fear is an emotion that lies dormant, deep inside us. Sometimes, something will wake it, other times it won’t. Sometimes it will swell up and take over our emotions, and for that again, it might not. In that respect, it’s a bit like love — unpredictable and unaccountable, I decided. Then, as my mind drifted on in a reverie, I recollected a bright eyed Irish girl with a pony tail that swung as she danced. The emotion she generated has lasted for fifty years. Thank heavens the fear at the bar that day lasted for only about fifty minutes.