Having had a good rest, we were up early once again to take the tide out of Chichester harbour and head West into the Solent. There was very little wind but we had the tide and managed to sail almost all of the way towards Beaulieu.
For people that do not know, many river entrances have what is called a 'bar'. This is a shallow area near the mouth of the river (perhaps caused by silt from the river) Beaulieu has a an entrance depth of 0.8 metres, so we were a little apprehensive about crossing it at nearly low tide at 1.2 metres. We kept a close eye on the depth gauge and sure enough it started dropping, but held our nerve, and after what seemed like a mile, we were in the Beaulieu river and deep water again.

We followed the well marked channel to a point in the river where we could drop the anchor, just near the edge of the river. It's always nice to get into where you are going a little early and just watch the world go by with a beer in hand of course.

When the tide started to ebb we 'dug' the anchor in as we were going to stay here for the night. As it got dark, we were rewarded by a wonderful sunset with hardly another boat in sight. The wind dropped and the boat hardly moved. I normally get up and check the anchor at change of tide when the boat swings round and has to re-settle but conditions were so gentle that I turned in for the night and slept like a baby ( for those that know me you know the joke!).

Next day we had a training day booked with a famous Yachtmaster instructor/Author, Tom Cunliffe, who turned out to be a charming and very thorough tutor. We were both a little nervous and thought he would tell us we were crap and not to bother, but it was not the case. He has a great eye for detail and noticed that one of the genoa sheets was tied with an upside-down bowline. It would be great to spend a month with him on board. We learned a lot in a short space of time but the day was soon over. The weather had been most kind and we decided to spend the night at Bucklers Hard Marina where we said our goodbye to T.C.

Our original plan was to get the early tide out of the Beaulieu and head straight for Weymouth, but later that day we decided to stay for a second night. As luck would have it, the Beaulieu boat jumble was on the next day with a free shuttle bus so off we went. We had a great day, bought a few bits, and also went to the motor museum. Then we walked into the village followed by the 2 mile walk back into the marina, rather than get the shuttle bus. No chance of any muscle wasting from lack of exercise.