We left on September the 18th after waiting and waiting for the weather to be stable enough for a trip to France. We gave up not confident enough that the unpredictable autumnal lows would hold out long enough!
As it happened we had beautiful weather most of the time except when we reached Weymouth and a few storms came through.
Our first stop was Torquay and after provisioning the boat I made a Lasagne for the trip round. Not such a good idea! the strongs winds we had had in previous days meant the swell was rather big and choppy, Mike refers to it as channel chop :-) Lasagne is not easy to dish up hot, nor eat, and makes a big mess of the oven :-(
We arrived in Torquay under the most beautiful night sky and phosphorescence coming of the wind vanes rudder. When we got in there were boats rafted but there appeared to be no space until we turned the boat and saw a summer pontoon on the harbour wall. We are slightly anxious about rafting (tying our boat up alongside and onto another) especially at one o'clock in the morning. We spent the day doing the round robin trip, open top bus to Totnes, tour boat down to Dartmouth, ferry to Kingswear and a steam train back to Paignton. We were exhausted, only to realise with the tides and weather predicted we could do with leaving Torquay at 2 o'clock in the morning. So quick shower, tidy up and straight to bed. We left at 2am and had a fairly good run across Lyme Bay, no storm this time :-) Mike and Jacob were blessed with sighting some Dolphins I had gone off watch and was catching some Zzzzz's ready to take back over from Mike in a few hours. We timed the tides right for the Portland race and scooted up into Weymouth Harbour. We spent four glorious days here it really felt like a holiday.
We ventured to the sealife centre (make sure you book the day before online as there are significant savings to be made) the tickets also allowed us up the Jurassic tower with fabulous views. We mooched about replacing the trolling line I had thrown over board on our way to Torquay. We still haven't caught anything though :-( Visited Nothe Fort and caught hermit crabs with our crabbing net.
After four days we set off for Poole, nice run round averaging 6knots with just the headsail and mizzen although, going off shore for the firing range made it lumpy again.
We entered Poole and realised we were back to the hustle and bustle of the central south coast. Our first anchoring option was quickly decided against (too shallow, mind you most of Poole harbour is!) We went to the the back of Brownsea Island and nestled in there, being anxious about the depths we decided to put another anchor out astern so that we couldn't swing into a shallower spot. We both slept really well. We spent the following day baking, playing and a little explore of Brownsea Island. We then weighed anchor from our free spot into a marina, we had a fabulous dinner on the boat at the quay (ours) and our good friends. We also met a lovely chap who came with us the following day to sail to Lymington.
It was a lovely sail back to the Solent but having been gone it felt so unfamiliar. We had settled quite nicely into the West Country pace of life.
Lymington Town Sailing Club were very gracious with us in the morning despite me telling Mike it says members only. To be fair I was in no mood to raft up either, one day soon hopefully we will understand the etiquette. We moved down onto the Harbour Masters pontoon amongst all the Sunday traffic! Being further up the coast we were close to an Aunty and Uncle who were free to come for afternoon tea and my parents joined us as well. A lovely day in the sun with some great people (the scones weren't bad either and the jam was great thanks Jayne ;-) )
Monday arrived and after a wander around Lymington we headed back to leave about 5pm. Only to find that the pontoon wasn't in the 2m that was charted and with huge springs and a blood moon we waited for another hour.
We finally passed under the Itchen bridge again at 2138 BST. Our log has recorded 580NM that is 500NM since we left in February! We have been a long way physically, emotionally and as a family.
This life is not all cocktails on deck (far from it with the 3 children) but it is teaching us all life lessons. We are thankful on the whole for what it gives us, family, friends, experiences, memories, challenges, resilience and most of all LOVE.
In the front of our log I wrote this before we left in February,
This log is being commenced as we embark on our first sea test. Up until now we have 'pootled' around the Solent and Southampton water. Let this log be honest, a reminder of the tough, the mundane, the triumph and the joy, our family's adventures and the love we share. May God watch over us, keep us safe and set the wind fair for our sails!
I hope the blog reflects this as well. We are wintering in Southampton and are likely to be fairly quiet as we have some more work to do on her now we know she is a keeper.
Thank you and Much love to you all for your continuing love ans support xxxxx