Another Surprise

With the onset of the winter months, November has been pretty mild and skipper made use of another bright and sunny day to take me out, not just me either.

Early Thursday morning (16th) skip and his crew turned up with bags of food, prepared me and slipped my lines and we headed down river.  I thought it odd that the fenders had been left out but that was soon explained by landing at Shepards once more.  Within 30 minutes four more people turned up plus two dogs and once aboard, a quick safety talk with tea and we set off.  Winds were slightly stronger than skip had expected but still light.  The new crew consisted of two elderly people, one of which didn't have sea legs, so skippers thoughts of flying Thor Junior upwind was not going to happen. The second was in remission, which is why they had come down for a week to stay with their son.  However, with the main sheeted into the centre, healing reasonably, I was achieving a healthy 7-8kts, with the tide mind but it only took six tacks to be heading directly into Totland Bay where we were to anchor for lunch. My AIS on Marine Traffic showed almost identical taking angles all the way up the Western Solent.

Lunch consisted of another homemade beetroot Gravlax, crusty bread and salad and of course Prosecco (orange juice for the ex-patient).

Despite it being sunny the temperature was reflecting more the time of year and the elderly couple had to sit inside my saloon to stay warm.

A crisp evening

In order to get the visitors back in time to enable them to open up their restaurant for the evening, as soon as lunch was over, the anchor was raised and we headed back, leaving the boys downstairs washing & drying up.  The main was raised and sheeted in tight but with a complete lack of wind the engine was left to do the work. Skipper kept me over to the mainland side to pick up the stronger tidal stream home.  A quick call to the Yacht Haven suggested there was a space to drop off our guests, as this is a shorter walk to their place than Shepards, but on arrival, space wasn't great and skip spotted much more room inside. So he took me past the entrance to the north basin and reversed me in, enabling the passengers to disembark. With the folks gone and making the way out, my crew took me back to my pontoon once more.  Skip dropped off his crew member shortly after landing to catch up with the builders before they left for the day and returned to sort me out as usual clearly pleased with the way the day had panned out.

A brief but enjoyable runout.