Friday 7th - Saturday 8th October
The original plan had been to sail to Southsea marina on the Thursday so that I could attend the RYA Diesel Course and then sail back over the weekend. Sadly due to work commitments and the weather I ended up driving to Southsea. I would highly recommend the course -I was lucky - the other students had cried off so it was one to one tuition and very good to (see the link for details).
I got the boat by about 4.30 dogging a couple of heavy showers that produced stunning rainbows over the marina.
I met up with Richard G in CYC for a very nice meal and good company, before retiring for the night on board.
The next morning I was up and about, getting ship shape. I had a visitor who wanted to see a Shrimper and discuss it's pros and cons, who left just before Jeff L arrived for a day sail in the harbour. The tide was extremely high and gave us plenty of water to sail down the Itchenor reach, looking at the dinghies in the dinghy park almost afloat on their trailers.
We lunched in Thorney Reach, sharing Jeff's sandwiches and local beer and my mussels in white wine - a very pleasant time.
After a sail down past East Head we cracked on back up the channel and saw an unfortunate X boat marooned on the mud - there was still an hour or so of ebb to run and they were high and dry by some margin already - I suspect it would be about 3 hours before they would float again (20.00 ish)
I think Jeff enjoyed the day and we planned some creek crawling adventures for the next season as we made our way back to the marina.
Wednesday 26th - Friday 28th October
A last fling.....
Jeff H and I decided to go for one last sail - so Wednesday morning found us breakfasting in Sainsbury's on the M27 and getting supplies in. By mid morning we were motoring briskly down the harbour to meet up with Nick P behind Hayling Island.
I phoned him en route and he was surprised that we had left the marina - we were in bright sunshine so it seems odd, before he explained that it was pouring down where he was and he had had three inches of hail stones in his cockpit minutes before........
Sure enough, over the trees came the darkest clouds you can imagine and the heaven duly opened above us.
We rendezvoused with Nick and between showers and his leaky spray hood grabbed a cup of tea. The decision was made to head for Portsmouth and we headed for the entrance - boy was it rough- we'd left it too long chatting and paid the price.
The world levelled out once out at sea and in between heavy rain we made our way via the submarine barrier to Gosport marina. After a wash and brush up we hit the town - ending up in Wetherspoons (Brad and Bob would be proud of us...) where we had a bit of banter with the staff.
Next morning was dull but dry and Jeff and I returned to Wetherspoons for breakfast - coffee was the order of the day but event at 09.00 there were people drinking beer ..... too early even for me.
Back at the marina we set off for Cowes and had a good sail across, being entertained by the Navy and a fleet of landing craft, military hovercraft and helicopters training out in the mid Solent.
Supper at the Folly was good and we turned in reasonably early to catch the tide in the morning.
Friday was dark when we got up but as we left Nick and motored down towards Cowes the sky brightened and it turned into a lovely day. Fortified by boiled egg sandwiches and tea we had a good, if gentle sail as far as Langstone, before the wind gave up and we motored back to Chichester.
Back at the marina we stripped out the cushions and electrics etc.- the plan being to return in a couple of weeks and winterise the engine before pulling her out for the winter and giving her good wash and polish before next season.
So 2011 season is over - with 43 nights afloat - not bad considering the summer was nothing to shout about . Roll on 2012.....
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