Saturday 3rd Sept/Sunday 4th Sept 2016
Gosport to Chichester
We have booked out the whole of September to cruise the East Coast meeting up with family and friends along the way.
We left our home port of Gosport at 4pm and called onto the fuel pontoon to top up the tank. We had previously filled our 9 x 20 litre water containers which are stowed under our berth in the bow. This trip is a good opportunity to trial a few ideas we have for our "2 go mad to the med" cruise next year, and the water container idea was one of them. The added weight in the bow is very noticeable as it makes for good ballast and Stiletto ploughed through the wind over tide conditions as we exited Portsmouth. It started to rain as we left and continued until we picked up a buoy on Chichester Harbour 2 hours later. We had a good down wind run, albeit wet, on the Genoa (Genny) with an average wind speed of 22 knots apparent. A glass of Islay Malt on arrival to warm up along with some hot food and some passage planning for the next hop to Eastbourne. I woke at midnight to howling wind and Stiletto was rocking and rolling so bad I felt sick!! Wind was gusting 30 knots and made our mooring very unpleasant. We were due to leave Chichester at 5am and after much discussion we decided to stay put until Monday. Our major concern was the sea state across the bar at low tide and actually, the sea state in general, as yesterday it was a big following sea with a lot of confusion and on the final leg, from the West Pole we were surfing!. With the wind having built overnight it would not make for a good exit. So we moved up to a mooring in Bosham with better protection from the Westerly wind, chilled, dozed and watched the Grand Prix. The sun showed its face at 3.30pm and we managed some time on deck watching the Optimists (Oppies).
Incident of the Day: Tried leaving the pontoon with the bow line still attached!! NEVER done that before!. The glass solar powered light bulb that we use as a night light in the cockpit smashed into tiny pieces which reinforces that glass on boats just doesn't work! And Andy decided to wear my life jacket. Mmmmm - and wondered why it didn't fit!
Thought for the Day? Hoorah we are off!
Song for the Day: Travis. Why does is always rain on me?