After leaving Wisbech and setting off across the Wash, Paul asked Maggot if she'd like to get some night-sailing in so she took the wheel. It was a beautiful night, the sun went down but never went far below the horizon so it never got completely dark. There wasn't much cloud cover overhead, and Ally and I spent quite some time happily stargazing while Graham instructed Maggot on the finer points of navigating at night.

There was lightning flashing in the clouds away to the west, but we couldn't hear any thunder so we reckoned it was quite some distance away, and indeed it never did rain throughout the night.

So, Ally, Maggot and I (and Graham) stayed on deck while the rest went below, thus missing all the fun.

The Wash is shallow so it isn't just a case of pointing Audrey's bow out to sea and heading out - there's a channel to be followed, and that channel is marked by buoys. Red ones and green ones, port and starboard, left and right.... except that at night, all you can see is the light on top of each buoy, which flashes a different "pattern" for each buoy, as marked on the navigation charts. Maggot was steering from buoy to buoy, as instructed by Graham, and seemed to have really got the hang of things.

As we moved into deeper water the further into the Wash we sailed, the buoys marking the channel began to get further apart and thus their lights harder to see, and their distances harder to judge. The main instruction was constant - DON'T get too close, and DON'T hit the buoys or we'd end up swimming!

As we approached a green intermittently-flashing light, Maggot judged it to be another ten minutes away - she was getting good at this night-driving lark - so she was understandably rather surprised when it began to loom closer than anticipated, much QUICKER than anticipated, and flashed by, far too big and FAR too close for comfort, clearly illuminated by our starboard navigation light! "F**!!ing h**l!! What was THAT!!??" was Maggots instinctive response, I merely jumped and flinched away from it, it was that close! Graham didn't say much, but he LOOKED a lot, and Paul, who had been below but was obviously well aware of what had happened, merely said, "Makes you wonder why they make them magnetic...." followed by, "Is that green paint I can see on your right sleeve, Maggot?" and my offer to fetch a marker pen so we could autograph the next buoy we passed was turned down most impolitely.

The rest of the trip was entirely uneventful, as, rather shaken, we gave all other buoys a VERY wide berth, and at around 1am we arrived off Skegness, with the seafront lit from end to end and Butlins putting on a magnificent laser light display for us. We edged carefully closer into the shore, keeping an eye on the depth gauge, until Paul decided it was time to drop anchor. Lifting the pawl which held the chain in place, it sped to the sea bed with a tremendous crash - nobody below could possibly have slept through it!

Having tidied up on deck and shut everything down, we went below and made a huge pot of porridge - we suddenly discovered that we were starving! and then went off to bed and slept like the proverbial logs, rocked once more by the waves, and dreaming of big green buoys.........