Onwards to the Isle of Wight 25th July 2017

Having being in Weymouth for 12 days we still weren't sure if we would be leaving on the 27th July or not. The 26th July had given us three different forecasts in the same day. We planned to leave when the bridge opened at 12 noon, so that would give us plenty of time to look and look again at the weather forecast.

Carole and Chris returned from their week at home and it was good to see them again, we nipped  around to Seaduction for me to look at a navigational programme on Chris's laptop. The computer agreed with me and also that it would be a long journey. The alternative was to leave at 6 am the following morning but that would have meant leaving the marina that night on the last bridge. As the weather was so changeable be decided to stay in the marina in case we couldn't leave.

Everything ready for the off.

Chris had already decided that if we stayed we would have our crab supper after all - so we were in a win win situation.

Luckily the weather looked fine the next day so we bid Carole and Chris farewell and set off. Chris was hopeful we would have a good sail.
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Carole and Chris of Seaduction.

 Lots of boats were milling around for the noon bridge.

As we came out of Weymouth we set the sails straight away and quickly flew across the bay, reaching 7 knots, at this stage I was worried that this might muck up our passage plan and that we would reach the needles too early - oh foolish woman!

Quite a lot of interesting things on the radio. Although we have a hand help radio on deck, if the caller is some way away I need to go down below to the main radio. So I was up and down with my notepad as there lots of information to note. First of all was Warship Sutherland, who announced they would be firing live missals therefore it was of vital importance that I knew exactly where they were. Luckily Sutherland was on the other side of Portland Bill, so that meant it was no where near us.One less thing to worry about.

Then there was a pan pan from a motor yacht with engine failure, Coastguard were trying to arrange a tow so I took down the position of the ship. In the middle of all this a rather irate fishing boat came on to yell at another boat, whether it was a sailing or motor yacht I do not know, but his language was rather fruity as he was furious that the other boat was not keeping a good watch and there had nearly been a collision. So the radio was being interspersed with the coastguard and the fisher man.

We heard later that a boat had taken the broken down boat in tow and the pan pan was cancelled.

A bit later into the journey the missal was fired. Although it was no where near us, it was exceedingly loud with a good boom coming to us.

As soon as we started going along the coast then the wind was behind us and the tide changed. We knew that we would be pushing the tide for a large part of the journey as we wanted to hit the needles at exactly the right time. But there is pushing the tide and pushing the tide. At one stage we were only making 1 knot.  The original plan had been to split this journey in two and stop off either in Studland Bay or Poole Harbour. That meant we would have the correct tide with us for each leg. However as the weather gods are definitely conspiring against us we knew we couldn't anchor in Studland Bay and I was worried about being weather bound in Poole Harbour as it coasts £48 a night. That was more than my thrifty nature would allow. So we were doing the long leg.

As the wind was behind us we had quite large seas. John spent most of the time on the helm as I had inputted a number wrongly into the nav system and we were then doing it the old fashion way with the chart on my knee. Not that the auto pilot would have been able to cope with the seas.

It just seemed a long time to get anywhere, but luckily the tide began to change when it should and our speed increased considerably.  We could see the Isle of Wight in the distance for quite a way before reaching the Fairway Buoy. By this stage the tide was really running and we knew we were in the Needles Channel. Sadly none of the photos came out as the journey was so bouncy.

I rang Yarmouth Harbour to be greeted with the news that it was full but we could go on one of the outer mooring buoys. We went down the Hurst Channel at ten knots and quickly arrived at Yarmouth, by this time it was 10 pm and dark. However much to our surprise and delight we managed to pick up a suitable buoy at first go, our friends Beth, Bob and Julia would be surprise after my attempts on the River Orwell earlier this year.

Once moored up a quick cupper and  sandwich and then to bed. John was off like a light but I couldn't sleep as the waves slapping against the boat was incessant and loud. The more I tried to sleep the more I couldn't, I went on deck twice to check everything was okay, which it was. Rather than disturb John I ended up sleeping in the cockpit, which was rather nice. I was very snug with the spare duvet and the stars were so clear with the lack of light pollution. I wish I'd though of this earlier as I dropped off very quickly. I was woken at 6 m by the clanging of the halliard but as I was on deck I didn't have far to move with the winch. I saw some yachts leave the harbour so was pleased about that.

We had discussed moving that morning onto Gosport but a look at the met office forecast showed this idea to be a none starter

At 7 am I radioed the berth master who said there was a place for us as some boats had left, so we quickly dropped the mooring lines and went in. We were in full wet weather gear as the heavens had decided to open. In the space of 15 minutes we were absolutely soaked but safely moored up in Yarmouth.

The rain continued nearly all day, you got wetter coming back from the showers than you had been in the shower! Our attempt at an afternoon walk was also cut short by the rain but by the time we had had our evening meal it was nice enough for a stroll.

Thursday morning was another long look at the weather, we decided that we will be here till Saturday morning then move on to Gosport. The tides won't we ready for us to move on until Monday, then we will make our way back along the south coast to Ipswich.