We are finally on our way southwards, after 9 weeks in Hamble, a bit longer than first thought. Said see you later the previous day to a great bloke...Peter (an Ex-British Airways Check Captain), who gave us some really sound advice about the south coast of the UK, especially the best food spots....yum. We hope to catch up with Peter around the Dartmouth area as the intention is to push down to Dartmouth before heading across to the Channel Islands. We left our pen X11 and stopped in at the fuel jetty, filled Songbird up with diesel for the first time, before heading out of the Hamble and into the Solent. We motored down the Solent on the last of the incoming tide past Hurst point out to 'The Needles', before hoisting a reefed main and full headsail. Set a very close hauled course to try and clear Anvil point on the peninsular south of Poole Harbour. Just cleared the point but tacked out to avoid the overfalls at this point as there was a bit of wind against tide happening. By this time, the tide had turned and started to flow westwards at quite a pace. We passed the DZ'c' buoy off the Lulworth firing range doing 10.7kts over the ground while doing 6.6 through the water....using the tide is an fine art to learn in these waters. Arrived in Portland Harbour late in the afternoon after what was a long day on the water.
The following day we spent in Weymouth/Portland doing a bit of sightseeing. Caught the bus into town and had a look around. Pretty little town but didn't seem to have any life or vibe about it. Went back to the boat and then out to the Portland Bill at the end of the Isle of Portland for a look at the famous "Portland Race". This runs for 9 out of every 12 hours of tidal activity and is famous for being a very bad bit of water, that needs to be treated with due respect. To have standing waves of 2+ metres on a calm windless day, turns into a very ugly bit of water when you mix in the wind factor. The other side to this is that it is not consistent as the race moves through a large area depending on the strength of the tides, which can be quite unpredictable at times. We walked back from the lighthouse which ended up being quite a long walk as we went down a couple of dead end coastal tracks, we were knackered...quick feed and into bed.