I sleep very little tonight - the wind has turned easterly and is blowing the breakers into Whitstable, which makes lying alongside uncomfortable indeed - ropes moan and then come tight with a bang, everything loose in the cupboards clatters noisily and I roll about on my cot. I wanted to leave on the early morning tide anyway, to not get stuck in Whitstable if the wind freshens and now I get up even earlier. Alan is up also and I wake the crew on Richards ship in order to discuss a way to get Betty out, she is stuck sandwich fashion between them. But with the wind from NE, it seems impossible and Richards crew has never manoeuvred the smack on their own, so I ask them to call Richard, insisting that they get him to Whitstable in a hurry. And indeed, here he is twenty minutes later and after a little while we all make it out of the harbour without a problem and motor together for the Swale on the early tide.

Finally alone again in the Swale after Alan and Richard have turned off for Faversham Creek, I motor only as far as the green No.1 buoy, where I drop the anchor next to Bonita, a lovely old yacht at her mooring, to wait for enough water in the Swale and in order to catch up on some sleep.
A couple of hours later on the ever turning river with two mouths - the one I entered from the East and the other to the Medway in the West - comes the only railway bridge to the Isle of Sheppey and a rather long wait for it to open. Now it is not far to Queenborough, where I pick up a mooring quite near to the hammerhead pontoon. Here the pull of the tide and the wind is again quite fresh and the boat seems to surf on the fast river waters.
In Whitstable I simply did not have the time to do some shopping. As a result the lockers are almost empty and hunger plus the need to have a fresh shower drive me ashore. I take the dinghy to the hammerhead and hungry start looking for the Queenborough Yacht Club, which is closed. Only the glorious sunset on the way back to Betty in the Dinghy does help my mood a little and after supper from whatever I can find in the lockers I am myself again.