I am very lucky to be asked to skipper the beautiful wooden boats that sail out of Womack Water in Norfolk. These boats were built in the 1930’s and have a lightness of movement that epitomises boats that were built without the weight of an engine.

The white boat in the picture is Sundew, she is a halfdecker, the distinction between her and a cabin yacht is that she does not have a cabin and the occupants have to face whatever weather hits them on the day. This particular day’s sailing was with a crew of naturalists from the Norfolk Wildlife Trust and they had come along to watch whatever nature would grace us with her company today and enjoy the trust’s centre at Ranworth Broad.

Summer in 2012 was a rather wet one with pouring rain and lowering skies, the days leading up to our sail were no exception.

As I drove up to Norfolk the promise was off a fine day. The wind was just right for a brisk sail along the Thurne and up the Bure to Ranworth and as the sky filled with clouds that were white not grey things just got better and better. By the time the naturalists had arrived the sun was hot with ranks of white clouds marching across the big Norfolk sky.

All day the sun shone so the wildlife came out to show us some of its brilliance. We were treated to a show all day and two sightings of note were: two swallowtail butterflies flying across the bows of our halfdecker and high above us while we were sailing near St Benet’s a crane soared. We spent some time tacking back and forth to keep the bird in view, much to the bemusement of passers buy.

By the afternoon a good stiff sea breeze had set up which necessitated a reef in the main so we stuck the bows into the bank to reef before setting off to enjoy a splendid sail back to the yard in wonderful sunshine with the songs of Reed Buntings and Reed Warblers serenading us along the way.

Extraordinarily enough, summer returned to its normal rain and lowering skies the next day!!