Ocean Mist Ship's Log

20 th of July 2008 - Summer Cruise - 2

20 ^th July Eastbourne-Brighton

24.6 miles

We finally left Eastbourne today around midday. We sailed around Beachy Head then tacked along the coast to Brighton. We managed 8.8 knots as we approached the marina. Bighton has to be the most enormous marina. It took me over 30 minutes to walk to the marina office and back and I got lost just trying to find my way out of the showers. Anyway at least they had recycling facilities.

21 ^th July Brighton-Newtown Creek Isle of Wight

24.6 miles

We left Brighton at sunrise and managed to find our way to the sea without to much of a problem. We sailed for a while until we got toward Selsey Bill at which point we had to put the engine on as the wind was on our nose again. We were swept by the tide past Osborn House and Cowes toward a lovely river where we were just in time to find an empty mooring buoy. We were expecting a drop of 2.5 meters by low water and had 2 meters under the keel. We were so tired after our 5am start we decided that we would risk living on a slope if necessary. Anyway we manajed to stay a float as the harbour master assured us we would. We had a lovely evening surrounded by waders and swans with a beautiful sunset.

22 ^nd July Newtown Creek-Brownsea Island Poole Harbour

25.8 miles

We had a relaxing morning as we didn't need to leave until 12 ish. Over breakfast we heard a mayday call coming from our river. A woman had severed her fingers whilst she and her husband were anchoring. The coastguard came and an ambulance was called. I spent a lot of the morning cringing and Andy thought of more safety measures to ensure his fingers never get caught. My fingers are not at risk as I remain up the clean end of the boat. We had a great passage through the needles channel with me navigating and in charge of photography with Andy at the helm. We then sailed the rest of the way to Poole. We found another fabulous spot around the north end of Brownsea Island where we anchored. We were the only people in the anchorage apart from 2 small boats that turned up after dark. They also disappeared in the small hours when the fog was heavy. I thought they must be spies.

23 ^rd July Brownsea Island

We decided to stay on our anchor for another night as our friends Nick and Susan weren't able to meet up with us until the next evening. The weather was lovely so we pumped up our little tender, fitted our new electric motor and landed on Brownsea Island, which is owned by The National Trust. We managed to spot red squirrels and a cika deer on our walk, as well as find a cafe for cake. Half of the island is rented to the WWT who gave us a 2 hour tour around the lagoon and hides for the bargain price of £2.00. When we returned to our boat we found we had been joined by lots of other yachts and motor boats. Some left by nightfall but others stayed....sadly for us.

24 ^th July Brownsea Island-Poole Quay

2.7 miles

At 12.30am we were woken by a thud. Andy was up and out in seconds and I joined him. We found one of the boats had dragged it's anchor and drifted back into us. Andy shouted to wake them and they quickly lifted their anchor and moved away from us apologetically. We were fairly philosophical and went to bed with a sense of 'there but for the grace...'. The boat was a Southerly 110 which has a lifting keel and could anchor in very shallow water well away from us, but no, they decide again to set their anchor up tide from us. Fortunately I didn't sleep too well and was alert to sounds outside. At 5am I heard what sounded like an anchor windlass and thought maybe someone was leaving early. As I am quite nosy I went up on deck and saw the Southerly drifting onto us again. The woman was at the helm this time and they were lifting their anchor. When I went forward with a fender she assured me they were fine and I shouldn't worry. She immediately revved the engine and motored straight across our bow dragging our anchor and taking us with them into shallow water. I shouted for them to stop at which point Andy was up on deck. Fortunately when they stopped they managed to drop our anchor chain. As they drove off into the sunrise they assured us they would be going some where well out of our way. We were slightly less forgiving of them this time as we had to lift our anchor and reset it in the cold and dark before going back to bed.

Of course this proves that Andy was right in buying a big 20kg spade anchor.

After a bit of a lie in we picked up some fuel and moved onto the Quay in Poole itself. We were right opposite Sunseekers where they make huge motor boats and work all night long. We did some chores and then met up with Susan and Nick for a fantastic Chinese meal in an unlikely position in Poole. They came back for a visit to the boat, but sadly we had a departure planned for 04.30 the next morning so were unable to be as hospitable as we would have liked.

25 ^th July Poole Quay-Weymouth

33.3 miles

We managed to slip our berth by 04.40 despite feeling tired and full of MSG. Opposite us at Sunseekers the lights were glaring and the music was blaring so we didn't feel lonely at that time of day. We sailed for most of the way to Weymouth giving the race off St Albans Head plenty of clearance which suited our angle of tack across the bay. We got into Weymouth by midday and rafted up on the harbour wall. It was a really warm day despite a fairly choppy sail with me feeling rather seasick. We had a snooze and Andy cooked tea. As our neighbours in the raft were so disappointed when we said we would need to leave at 07.00 we had a rethink and decided to spend tomorrow in Weymouth.

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