Picnics in the Harbour

Fronts, Fronts and more fronts.

2008-08-20T11:18:00.004+01:00

The weather chart has looked like this all summer. Front after front after front has been heading across the Atlantic. Each weekend has been cold, damp and windy. We've been out in the boat three times and only gone anywhere twice, the last time in June!

The alleged cause is the la nina event in the Pacific for the last two years which has pulled the jetstream further south over the Atlantic. Normally in the summer, there'd be a high pressure area coming up from the Azores and the jetstream would be guiding those depressions to the North of Scotland. This year, like last, has seen the jetstream just to the South of the UK and the associated depressions have come and dumped over us once every two or three days.

Last year the weather finally cleared in early September. Well, we've got a week of sailing booked from September 8th, so it had better do the same this time!

The Facelift

2008-07-18T12:31:00.003+01:00

This is the sea dawg looking rather sorry for herself on Tuesday evening after the op to fix her eyes. She was a bit groggy when this was taken, but the surgeon's done a very neat job on her and she was back to her old self the next day.

Bless her little spotty chest.

Balmy Summer days

2008-07-18T11:39:00.004+01:00

Chichester Harbour entrance 12th July 2008. Yep, that's a tornado over Selsey. Well, not quite. It's a funnel cloud coming down from an apocalyptic looking cloud line. We didn't see it touch down, but apparently Selsey is England's little tornado alley.

We were going to try and head over to Cowes, despite the fairly ropey weather, because we'd got James on board for the first time. We knew the tides would be against us, with high tide at 7:00am, but the wind was against us too. After three hours of pitifully slow progress against wind and tide, we were still only level with the Langstone Harbour. We could have pressed on and got to Cowes at about 7pm, but we decided that Chichester was still closer, and so we turned around and had a very pleasant sail back. With wind and tide favouring us, the GPS was showing a healthy 7 knots at times, which was nice.

The weather was still pretty indifferent though. We were hoping not to be in fleeces in the middle of July! Ah well, the food at the Ship was particularly fab.

We did manage a short sail and picnic in the harbour on Sunday. With no particular place to go and two crew to pull on the sheets, we spent some time tacking up the channel from Itchenor to East Head. Despite much moaning from the crew about tacking every couple of minutes, I thought it was quite fun. Of course I wasn't doing any work.

As the level of mutinous grumblings started to build up, I decided discretion was the better part of valour and headed up Thorney Channel to find a buoy to hang off while we had a little light lunch. Missy seemed much chirpier after a couple of glasses of pink wine, although she did refuse to do the first mate duties on the way back to base.

Burgau, Portugal

2008-07-11T10:25:00.008+01:00

With school out in the US for the summer, Missy's mum came over for her annual visit. Last year she sat watching the rain for pretty much the whole trip, so this year we took the precaution of booking a week in Portugal to try and guarantee a little sunshine.

The chosen spot was Burgau, a small village in the Western Algarve just to the west of Praia da Luz. It's still relatively small and unspoiled, with the new complex where we stayed being one of the larger developments, but still not too intrusive.

We had a pleasant week over there, flying out on Saturday afternoon with BA to Faro and hiring a slightly scuffed up, but servicable Peugeot 307 estate from ZitAuto at Faro airport who seem to come highly recommended.

We didn't do much for the week but eat fish, read books, lie around in the sun. We had planned to do more, but that seemed just about sufficient to be honest. Most of the restaurants in Burgau specialise in fish and we had some great stuff.

A word of warning: if you go to the restaurant Ancora and order the crab salad starter, then it's probably best to share! It's quite an edifice.

On the other hand, there's plenty of simpler stuff at the cafes and you can't go to Portugal without having a few sardines. These were at the cafe at Ingrina, a few miles to the west of Burgau in the National Park. The food was good and the view's pretty special, too.

I did spend some time staring wistfully out to sea and we did have some ideas of hiring a hobie cat from the beach at Luz, or doing a trip on one of the larger sailing boats, but you can only sail the cats in a small area off the beach and the trips just looked too much hassle, so the only places we had to see were Sagres and Cape St Vincent.

Cape St Vincent is is the most south westerly part of Europe. I'm not fond of heights at the best of times so, while I appreciated the rugged beauty of the Cape St Vincent cliffs, it took a while for my stomach to stop churning.

All in all a very pleasant week, with lots of good food and good weather in lovely surroundings. Highly recommended.

There are some more pics of the week over here

Working from boat.

2008-06-21T12:45:00.007+01:00

It turns out that the sea dawg needs a face-lift. She's been having problems with infections in her right eye for ages and it seems to be steadily worsening. The vet doesn't have much to offer other than eye drops which only work for a few days, so he referred us to an animal opthamologist. By coincidence, the nearest one is in Emsworth. That's 'andy.

So we headed off down to Chichester on Thursday evening for a change. Missy sensibly booked the appointment for Friday afternoon, so we made use of the (disappointingly flakey) marina wifi and worked off the back of the boat on Friday. I'm not sure how much productive work I got done, with VPN problems taking much of the day, but it certainly beat sitting staring at a car park in Bracknell.

Anyway, the opthamologist confirmed that her lower eyelids are too long and she'll need surgery to shorten them. We were amused to find that the procedure involves taking a small amount of skin from the side of her face and pulling it tight, so she's going to be facelifted. I'm sure she'll look lovely. Sadly, he said that, no, he can't give her botox to get rid of the wrinkles while he's at it.

We had a lovely weekend, making the short trip down to Bembridge. *Again* we were out early, being one of the first boats out as free-flow started. We motored down to East Head and got the sails up as we passed North Winner buoy. The wind was a bit variable to start with but as we rounded the new West Pole marker, we had a nice angle for a close reach pointing pretty much at St Catherine's Head. Not quite a straight line to Bembridge, but we only needed a couple of tacks to get us heading to the harbour entrance.

I thought we'd be early enough to get a decent berth on the Duver pontoon, but everybody on the South Coast seemed to have had the same idea as us and it was already rafted four or five deep on the outside of the pontoon. We were slightly surprised that we were directed onto the inside. I always thought it was a bit shallow there.

I was wrong - it's a lot shallow! Here's the picture at low tide on Sunday morning. We were sitting in about 18" of water with the keel and rudder sunk into the soft mud.

To be fair, nobody was going to be going anywhere for another three hours or so, because the harbour entrance is roughly the same depth.

So, nothing for it but to go and get a newspaper, get the kettle on and sit and drink coffee before heading off for a walk on the beach. Can't beat it for a relaxing Sunday.

Once we had enough water we headed off back to Chichester. The wind was perfect, a pleasant South-Easterly that gave us a beam reach all the way back to Chichester. It swung round a little towards the end, but we were able to sail serenely back as far as Itchenor (it was on the nose by then, and I didn't fancy tacking up the channel) before firing up the engine and cruising home.

Sumer is icumen in?

2008-06-21T12:12:00.004+01:00

At last, at the end of May we finally had some reasonable weather to go sailing, so man and his finely-honed sea dawg were able to head over to the Folly for the weekend. To be frank, the weather wasn't great, but it was good enough. A little sun, a little wind and the only rain overnight.

Knowing that we're useless at heading off early from home on a Saturday morning, we went down on Friday evening, were up at an outlandish hour. (The alarm was set for 6am), and were one of the first boats out of the marina as the depth in the channel filled in to a decent level. It makes a change for us to be so organised.

Not much to report on the trip over to Cowes, although while we were to listening to the coastguard directing Whisky Bravo to a medical emergency on a yacht off Calshot, we were almost surprised by this monster coming up behind us. I wondered why the Southampton harbour launch was hanging around in the vicinity!

We arrived at the Folly while the lunch crowd were still hanging about, so we had to shift Moonshine twice before we got properly settled. For the first time, though, we were on the inside of the visitors pontoon. It's a nicer spot to be and feels less like being in a marine car park.

We were early all weekend for some reason, and were fed, watered (actually probably too much watered by the time we'd finished) and back on the boat by about 9:30.

We were able to have a lazy Sunday because of the tides. With low tide at Chichester at about 3pm, we had the option of getting up and away by 8:00am, or hanging around until about 11:00 and idling our way back. Not surprisingly we chose the latter, having a leasurely breakfast and a walk down to Island Harbour before heading to the fuel dock opposite East Cowes Marina (red diesel up from 45p a litre to 77p a litre since the last time we re-fueled!!!) We had just enough wind to sail, but it took until around 1pm for the tide to turn and we started to make a decent speed back to Chichester. For about the first time ever, we got into a decent position to get through the small craft channel in the submarine barrier off Portsmouth, so we didn't have to fire up the engine to get through.

We dawdled up the Itchenor channel, because we reckoned we'd be struggling for depth, but two hours after low water we had over a metre under the keel in the marina approach. It looks like the channel depth is actually more than they post.

So, back at 5pm and off home. At last, Moonshine actually went somewhere for the first time since October.

Spring sailing

2008-06-20T15:33:00.002+01:00

Moonshine went back in the water while we were away, but it was a few weeks before I was able to get down to her. Last year, we had some of our best sailing in April, but this year the weather made it a complete wipe out. We got the sails back from being valeted and got them on, cleaned up the interior and sorted out the mast electrics, but we didn't get out on the water until late May. The bank holiday weekends were uniformly foul. Ugh. What a shock to the system.

50 Not Out - Day 12 & 13. Antigua and home.

2008-06-20T15:19:00.004+01:00

We had a lovely couple of days in Antigua. It's quite a contrast to the BVI. English Harbour and close-by Falmouth Harbour are very yachtie and I dare say a lot of the Brits there are the same people as you'll meet in Cowes most weekends.

The Antiguans seem much less reserved than The BVI'ers, it was noticable how most people you pass in the street greet you, which is something we didn't find in the BVI. It's not that people are unfriendly on Tortola, it's just that they're less open. Anyway, it was very pleasant.

The mix of boat bums, millionaires and eccentric expats is quite an appealing mix, too. Hopefully we'll be lucky enough to be able to go back there again some day.

Anyway, after two days of mooching around the dockyard, admiring the boats and lazing on the beach, we headed off back to the airport for the BA flight back home. We arrived at the airport very early and were dismayed to find that the flight had been delayed by something like six hours after problems in London.

Still, we killed some time quite nicely, sitting in the evening sun at the Stanford cricket ground and then heading to the Sticky Wicket bar for something to eat and a few beers. It gave the holiday a nice symmetry to start and finish there.

I can't tell you much about the flight home. I was dozing before the plane finished taxi-ing to the runway, and didn't wake up again until after the cabin crew had served breakfast. Missy assures me it was pretty good, though.

So back to Easter in sunny England...and blizzards over the bank holiday!

Still, nothing can take away the memories from absolutely the best holiday ever. We had the most wonderful time.

50 Not Out - Day 11. Nanny Cay and English Harbour.

2008-06-20T14:08:00.004+01:00

March 17th - the day we had to hand the boat back. There was no wind as we headed out of Cane Garden Bay, which was disappointing. We were resigned to motoring the whole way back but, as we headed round the southern tip of Tortola past Sopers Hole, the wind filled in nicely. We finished up having a lovely sail, tacking up and down between Tortola and St John, exchanging tacks with another boat going much the same way. The wind even got up to a level when I was wondering if we'd have to reef, but settled down at a nice 15-18 knots until we lowered the sails for the last time at the entrance to Nanny Cay.

So we refueled and re-watered the boat before calling Horizon to let them know we were back. At this point we handed over responsibility for Sunshine, as he reversed her from the fuel dock, around the marina and into her slip. There's always a smartarse.

After lunch at the Gennaker bar (best roti's, Red Stripes, burgers etc on the island - at least according to Devon, the waiter!) we caught the taxi back to the airport. After an interesting encounter with a guy from St Kitts and Nevis who, dressed in a rather scary checked shorts suit with matching hat, taught us some of the local phrases, we headed off on the LIAT flight to Antigua via St Maarten.

We arrived at English Harbour, on the South side of the island, some distance from the airport in the early evening. We'd booked a couple of nights at the Copper and Lumber Store Hotel in the old dockyard at English harbour. It's an amazing place, a restored 18th century naval storehouse with the rooms around an open central courtyard. The nicest thing was that it's air conditioned though!

Missy had wisely booked dinner ahead at Abracadabra, a very pleasant Italian restaurant, so we had the luxury of having a nice shower, before getting changed and walking the short distance down there. English Harbour is very, well, English. (Think Fulham-on-sea). It felt strange at first, being amongst so many English accents after a couple of weeks of largely either American or Caribbean ones.

50 Not Out - Day 10. across to Cane Garden Bay

2008-06-20T12:38:00.014+01:00

OK, it's now mid-June, a full three months after we got back from the BVI. I think I ought to accelerate my posting a bit, before it overlaps with my 60th birthday report!

Since it's been left out for a while, here's the faithful little dinghy that trailed behind us for the whole two weeks. They're pretty cool little ribs, actually. Perhaps we should get one for zooming round Chichester Harbour or taking up and down the Thames.

This pic was taken at Sandy Cay, where we stopped off for breakfast on our way over to CGB. We'd already had an eventful day by the time we arrived there.

As I made my way into the cockpit first thing, it was obvious that the scene wasn't quite as it should be. I'd paid attention to the boats to our right, because one of them, a largish Moorings cat was disconcertingly close to where I thought our anchor was. Only now it wasn't, it was about twenty yards back....and sliding slowly backwards towards Invictus 2! It was obvious that there was nobody awake on the boat, and it looked like it wasn't going to be long before there was an expensive coming together. I fired up the little yellow dinghy and headed across there. There was no response to me calling them from the dinghy, but battering on the sides of the hulls, soon had the skipper peering blearily out of a hatch. He did well to get everyone up and the boat stabilised before anything bad happened.

Since we were going to be heading away for breakfast anyhow, we upped anchor pretty much immediately and headed out of the harbour. We got lots of waves and blown kisses from Invictus as we left. I think they were appreciative that we'd saved them from damage. I'm sure it would have been covered by Moorings insurance, but they live on the boat, so the inconvenience would have been pretty irritating.

We arrived over at Sandy Cay after a short motor and anchored a short distance from this guy before getting the coffee going. We hadn't really got any plans for the morning, so we weren't in a rush to head off until some idiot came in at 90 degrees to the direction we were lying and stopped about 20 metres ahead of us before dropping a few metres of anchor chain in a heap. It was obvious that as he swung round, he'd broadside us but, before we could ask him to move, he got in his dinghy and headed off to shore.

We quickly upped anchor again and headed off to Cane Garden Bay, muttering darkly about charter companies not properly vetting their charterers.

The rest of the day improved quickly, although the weather was up and down, with sunshine and showers. We wandered over to Stanley's for the obligatory cheeseburger in paradise, although Missy broke ranks and had the honey stung chicken, which she's still raving about.

After lunch our plan was to head over to Bobby's to get a couple of bottles of the local Callwood's rum. We misremembered the route from the last trip, making a substantial detour in entirely the wrong direction, actually passing the distillery and this little guy making his presence felt as king of the hill. After re-traceing our steps back to Bobby's it turned out that they didn't actually have any of the rum, anyhow. We nipped back to Stanley's who said that they did have a shop at the distillery, although he wasn't sure if they'd be open on a Sunday afternoon.

We thought we'd take a chance on it, otherwise it would be an indefinite amount of time having to drink Mountgay rum on Moonshine. There's nothing wrong with Mountgay, but it fundamentally isn't Arundel rum, and somehow doesn't seem quite as right.

I'd visualised the distillery as a modern factory with gleaming stainless steel stills and guys in white coats. That's about as far as from this place as it could be possible to be. There were three teenage lads mooching around in the "shop", who were just about to leave for the day. They did have plenty of rum, though, and a dollar each bought us a tour of the facility.

The youngest of the three boys showed us around. He was very proud of the history of the place. The buildings are approaching 400 years old, and the Callwood family (he's a Callwood) have owned the distillery for 200 of them. The place is the most ramshackle thing imaginable, but utterly fascinating.

This is the drive leading up to the distillery. It's not quite as industrial as I'd imagined!

Through the gloom, you can just make out the glass demijohns, where the white rum is aged.

This is where it all starts: A field of sugar cane next to the distillery, complete with sign warning off miscreants.

The engine room of the whole operation: Underneath the corrugated iron roof is an ancient truck engine. A belt connects the engine to a medieval-looking crushing device. The juice is squeezed out of the canes and it runs into an old stone trough.

The cane is dried, and used as fuel to boil the cane-juice. The entrance to the furnace is the circular pipe in the wall.

The juice is then fermented for a period of time. It's then re-boiled before being run through this ancient old still -
not much sign of stainless steel or gleaming copper around here!

The resulting spirit is then aged for a while. The white rum is aged in the glass jars, while the dark rum is aged in old oak whisky casks, which give it it's darker colour and the hint of vanilla, which tastes so good sitting in the cockpit of Moonshine while staring at the night sky.

Sunset for our last evening on the boat (boo!) before we headed off to Antigua for a couple of days (hurray!) and then home (boo!) before easter at the parents' (hurray!).

We ate at Quito's on our last evening. More great seafood, and another great table at a restaurant, overlooking the bay.

50 Not Out - Day 9. Soggy Dollar and Sydneys.

2008-05-16T16:53:00.008+01:00

A chilled out day today. We were staying put in Great Harbour, so we had a quick wander around the sandy main street of the settlement, arriving just in time to see Taboo swimming back to shore after diving out to greet a party of school children who'd arrived on a wooden boat with a rig that looked like an arab dhow. Very unusual. I thought I'd taken a picture of it, but obviously not, so here's a long-shot of the church at Great Harbour instead.

We took the dinghy round the headland for lunch at the Soggy Dollar bar and had a very pleasant time, although we did find ourselves getting slightly sniffy and snobbish when the day-trippers arrived. Even more so with the fairly rough two English couples who showed up later on (tattoos, ciggies and loads of effing and blinding. Charming).

We did meet a couple who have retired to a liveaboard life on their boat Invictus2. We were pretty jealous. Boo hiss. They were pretty dismissive of a lot of charterers, but they seemed to like us for some reason.

Anyway we had lots more Red Stripes before retiring back to Sunshine for a well earned snooze, meeting this wonderful boat on the way back. Her name's Kokomo and she's very big and beautiful indeed. For about the first time on the trip, we didn't have nice fluffy white clouds and blue skies today. Ah well, I guess sometimes we just have to suffer a little :-)

Dinner this evening was at Sydney's Peace and Love over in Little Harbour. While waiting for the cab driver, Missy got to have a beer and a chat with Ivan, which she was thrilled about. Not much to report about Sydney's, really. The pig-roast was really good, though. Sydney's still works on the Honour Bar system, so you can just nip behind the bar and pour your own beers if you feel so inclined. Our paths crossed with the two catamaran-loads of a capella girl singers again here, but also with a miserable boatload of Americans who just had to be lawyers, trying to scam as much from the restaurant as possible. Ah well, not everyone can be as nice as us :-)

50 Not Out - Day 8. Anegada to JVD and Foxys.

2008-05-09T16:47:00.007+01:00

This was our longest sailing day, heading downwind from Anegada to Jost Van Dyke. There's nowhere to get water on JVD, so it involved a pitstop at Marina Cay to fill the tanks and get ice.

We had to make an early start, and for once managed to get away in decent time. We left at around 8:30am with a gentle broad reach taking us back down towards Tortola.

It was a lovely sail and Missy didn't move much from her spot in the picture here. She stayed lost in her thoughts for almost the entire trip. We managed a rapid 20 minute turnaround at Marina Cay, made our way through the Channel to the North Side of Tortola (remembering Georgina's briefing advice to take the narrow channel between Great and Little Camanoe and not the inviting wider passage). At about this point we lost the wind a little and had to motor the rest of the way, behind Guana Island and out to Jost.

One lovely moment was when a dolphin spent some time with us, diving in front of the boat, then following us underneath the dinghy before heading off. The only reason we saw it was because it was silhouetted against the sandy bottom, so we might have had more visitors along the way that we missed.

We got to Great Harbour just about in time to be able to anchor without having to struggle to find space. Just within earshot of the large group of friends in catamarans who were partying hard on their whole trip. Fortunately, their playlist was pretty good, so the music wasn't intrusive.

For the first time on the trip, Missy decided it was time to get the air be out and spend some time in the water. After a shower and another brave attempt to reduce the Red Stripe stash we headed off to Foxy's.

It's unlike any of the other places in the BVI that we've visited, which are generally pretty small. Foxy's is a cavernous sort of opened walled space and we were slightly nervous that it wasn't going to be us, but it was terrific. Foxy clearly relishes his role as an island character and wanders around swapping anecdotes with his guests for the evening, and being happy to pose for cheesy photographs with dodgy characters like these two!

The bar is home to a few cats, who know how to spot a sucker (me!) who is likely to take pity on their poor, starved animal impression and feed them tasty bits of barbeque, plus Taboo, Foxy's big black dog who is one of the few dogs I've met who has a better life than Clementine! He cadges scraps in the evening, wanders around JVD during the day, taking his naps in the shade under the trees and generally having an idyllic life.

50 Not Out - Day 7. Loblolly Bay, ARH and the ghost of Ken Bates.

2008-04-25T16:54:00.009+01:00

Today we headed off to Loblolly Bay. We had another slight taxi holdup, because the old truck wouldn't start and the dreadlocked driver couldn't get the hood open to try and fix it. After much pulling, pushing, thumping and hammering with the help of Potter from the restaurant, Mitch, who's truck it is, arrived and applied the correct magic to open it up. A quick squirt of petrol into the (diesel) engine and we had lift off.

Loblolly's slightly futher away than Cow Wreck beach, but we had proper roads for further too, since they're black-top to the airport before reverting to packed sand. We saw some of the island donkeys on the way.

Loblolly is another wonderful spot. It's a slightly larger beach than Cow Wreck with a more people, but it's still utterly beautiful and the snorkelling is definitely better. We didn't do much, but snorkel, sit in the sun, eat lunch at the Blue Bamboo restaurant and repeat after lunch, but what a wonderful spot to do that.

We couldn't work out what these little critters were up to as they followed us everywhere. It was only when one of us touched the bottom that we realised they were waiting for us to stir up the sand so that they could sift it for food. Who said that fish were stupid?

These girls were part of a group of about twenty who we met a few places around the islands. It turns out that they're an all-girl acapella singing group on a vacation sharing two very nice catamarans with a lady chaperone and with two young guys organising the trip (including the "medic") who looked like they couldn't believe their luck!

Dinner for my birthday was at the Anegada Reef Hotel. Again a wonderful meal in a wonderful setting - and the one evening we didn't take a single picture! Ah well.

After the meal, we got talking to the lady who runs the ARH. She's been there since the late 1960's, when she went over to Anegada to work for Ken Bates who was trying to set up a mega-resort on the island, having purchased a 199 year lease on 90% of the island, something that would have been a disaster for the island and the islanders. Fortunately, the BVI government managed to make life difficult enough for him that he abandoned the project leaving Anegada to be the un-developed paradise that it remains today. We were horrified that it came so close to being ruined by such an unpleasant character as Bates, but delighted that the BVI government had been able to get rid of him. It was weird to hear his name crop up in such an unlikely place, though.

50 Not Out - Day 6. Cow Wreck and Potters.

2008-04-22T21:53:00.008+01:00

This really was a day in paradise. We got off to a slow start when the taxi that we'd ordered to Cow Wreck beach didn't show up. The driver had been held up on the other side of the island. We were told this by the lady running the store while we were waiting outside for him to show up. We wondered why she'd know, but another passer by told us that she was his daughter. Life on a small island.

Eventually we found another cab (actually a pick-up with benches bolted to the back!) to take us over there, finding out that the nicely made roads around the anchorage at setting point give way to sand a few hundred yards past the village on the way to Cow Wreck. Still, the sand is fairly smooth, although I'm not sure how long the trucks last with the beating they must take.

The interior of Anegada is just dry scrub, with the occasional lizard, flamingo or one of the many donkeys that roam free.

Cow Wreck beach itself is just a bar and a couple of small bungalows on the beach. It's peaceful and utterly wonderful. I'd be happy to spend a couple of weeks there just doing nothing but read, walk, snorkel and sit at the bar watching the waves.

We did a bit of snorkelling in the wonderfully clear, sheltered water, then had some lunch and topped up our Red Stripe levels. I had the shark taco, which was pretty darn good. When I asked if it was local, the barman said that he catches them himself each morning. You can't get more local than that.

We spent the afternoon alternating a little more snorkelling with a little snoozing and a little more Red Stripe drinking before the cab arrived to take us back across the island to the boat.

Dinner was at Potters by the sea, another sand-floored beach bar restaurant with great fish. I skipped the lobster this time, feeling slightly sorry for the poor chaps after seeing them awaiting their fate in cages by the dinghy dock! We had a great time after dinner watching a group from Wisconsin trying to emulate the dancing of the waitress. We decided that generally, it's not just white men who can't dance. They were great fun though and it was a fantastic way to spend the last few hours of my 40's.

The pictures didn't turn out too well from this one. I guess the camera must have been affected by the rum I had as a night cap.

50 Not Out - Day 5. Off to Anegada

2008-04-22T14:43:00.008+01:00

Anegada isn't a particularly long trip from North Sound, only about 12 1/2 miles but, because Anegada is very flat indeed, you can't see it so it feels like you're heading off into the unknown.

The guides all recommend arriving at Anegada around noon so that you have a good chance of seeing any coral heads in case you get you bearings wrong. We headed off from Leverick Bay at around 8:30 am to make sure that we managed that, having filled up again with water and managed to purchase ice from the two endearingly incompetent guys who run the fuel dock at Leverick Bay.

We had a great sail up to Anegada with a nice broad reach taking us up there in decent time. Missy was a bit concerned that every other boat was slightly to the West of us, but the waypoints and advice about the current from Walker Mangum's excellent Anegada navigation page proved to be correct and most of the other boats had to turn towards the entrance channel from some distance out.

Anegada gradually appears over the horizon trees-first. They're the only thing that is over 35' high. As you get a little closer, the trees get a little more defined and the water turns from this.

To this.

And then to this.

It really is the most stunning spot and we sat for some time just drinking in the colours (and the Red Stripes of course).

We were a little concerned about the water depth at the mooring here. At low tide we had all of 6" under the keel, but with no appreciable swell and a soft, sandy bottom, there wasn't much of an issue.

There are three restaurants on this side of Anegada: Neptune's Treasure; Potters, and the Anegada Reef Hotel. They all ask you to reserve your table *and* what you'd like to eat by 4pm so that they know how many people they're serving and what they need to throw on the oil-drum grills. They also tell you what time to show up. Our choice for the first evening was lobster at Neptune's Treasure.

Sitting at our table at the water's edge, watching the sunset, drinking wine and waiting for our lobsters to arrive, I realised that, to my surprise, it can actually get better than Leverick Bay.

Wow.

50 Not Out - Day 4. Bitter End to Leverick Bay

2008-04-22T11:59:00.005+01:00

This was a really lazy day, even by our standards. Total distance to travel - about two miles across the sound.

So a little shopping for t-shirts and stuff at BEYC followed by the short trip across to Leverick Bay, where we'd booked a slip for the night to make a change from bobbing around on a buoy. Not much to report apart from that. We much preferred the Leverick Bay resort to Bitter End. It's still very very nice, but just a little less manicured. Just like us, really.

We were joined at the dock by one of the biggest boats we saw on the trip, Cracker Bay. Formerly Campbell Bay Very impressive. Oddly, we didn't see any of the guests actually leave the boat while they were there.

In the evening, while we were lazing back at the restaurant, chatting and drinking, I noticed the couple at the next table were having one of those very quiet but intense arguments that people have when they're in public and can't scream at each other. It seemed such a shame that in a beautiful place as this, they were so miserable. I did mention to Missy that it was a waste, because it doesn't get better in life than this, so they really should look around them and appreciate what they have.

The next few days were to prove me wrong though. I thought it didn't get better than North Sound, but then I'd never been to Anegada before.

50 Not out - Day 3. The Baths and North Sound

2008-04-22T11:22:00.008+01:00

We headed off after a slightly delayed start waiting for a boat to clear the Marina Cay fuel dock. The pitching of the boat into the waves yesterday had caused the shower head to crash into the tap in the heads, causing us to fill the bilges with all our fresh water, so we couldn't head off without filling up.

Fortunately, we didn't have a terribly demanding day planned, just a quick motor across to the channel to visit the Baths on Virgin Gorda for lunch before heading to North Sound.

We'd missed the Baths in 2005, due to trying to drown ourselves by swimming to shore against wind and current. What was surprising on re-visiting the area was just how close into shore we actually were, given the difficulties we got into. It was probably less than 100 metres. This time, with the wind abating, it all looked very benign.

You can't take the dinghy into the shore at the Baths, because of the number of bathers, so you have to leave it on a floating rope a little offshore. In another one of my great decisions, I dropped Missy off on the left side of a pile of rocks before heading over to the right side to moor up so that she could wade ashore with the camera and all the gear.

What I hadn't realised was that the "pile of rocks" actually splits the beach completely into two with no easy way round. After puzzling for a while, I figured that Missy was smart enough to realise that we weren't going to be able to meet up down there so I headed up the marked path to the restaurant, arriving just in time to meet a somewhat miffed Missy. Oops.

Virgin Gorda has a lot of chickens. This one spent much of the time searching for crumbs between the restaurant tables. Perhaps someone should have mentioned the obvious dangers of becoming a chicken burger to her!

We felt obliged to make at least a token effort to spend sometime looking at the huge boulders and pools that make up the Baths, despite time moving on apace. They're actually pretty cool. Something else to re-visit next time.

We had hoped to sail up to North Sound, but the weather was changing somewhat and the winds were lighter and much more variable than on the trip up to Marina Cay, so we managed about a mile of constant trimming and flapping sails before giving up and motoring the rest of the way, lightweights that we are.

We almost had a minor disaster on trying to pick up a buoy at the Bitter End Yacht Club, when the boat hook twisted out of Missy's grasp and into the water. It hadn't crossed my mind until this point what a critical piece of of kit the boathook actually is. Fortunately, a passing dinghy from the yacht club saw us lose it and were able to swing round and pass the hook to us. It was actually quite a neat piece of sailing from them.

The lovely thing about North Sound is the sense of tranquility, because of the amount of shelter from the surrounding hills and reefs. It's more like being on a lake than at sea.

After getting ourselves organised and having a couple of beers, we headed off to the Bitter End resort for dinner. It's very, very pleasant, but not particularly our kind of place, feeling a little too much like a theme park for the wealthy for our liking. That being said, dinner in the pub was very pleasant and the drinks went down just as well as elsewhere. Another good day, all in all.

50 Not Out - Day 2. Upwind to Marina Cay.

2008-04-21T15:25:00.006+01:00

We'd expected this to be our one fairly demanding sailing day of the trip. The prevailing winds in the BVI are from the east, and there's a knot or so of current drifting approximately north west. With the wind sticking at a little over twenty knots, we headed out of the bight at around 9:30am. The seas were a little calmer than the previous afternoon and, with two reefs in the main and the jib partly furled, things weren't actually too bad. We weren't making a huge amount of forward progress as we tacked up and down the channel, but Sunshine was very happy and we eventually motored into Marina Cay at about 3pm.

The last time we were here, things were a bit hair raising. As we prepared to pick up a mooring buoy, the cabin filled with smoke and the engine quickly lost power. I had to turn the engine off in case we were about to catch fire, which meant we weren't able to use the windlass to get the main anchor down, eventually getting the secondary out just before we ran out of water.

This time, thankfully, we motored serenely in, picked up the buoy at the second pass and were able to crack open a few relaxing Red Stripes without fizzing with adrenaline. It was much better this way!

At dinner at the restaurant, we had to take a picture of one of the not-quite-sturdy-enough-for-Woody chairs as a memento of the previous trip. "If you're going to fall, just fall...."

Missy was very disappointed to find that the blue-cheese burger isn't on their dinner menu. Ah well, another excuse to return.

50 Not Out - Day 1. Nanny Cay and Norman Island

2008-04-15T14:32:00.004+01:00

It was very pleasant to throw back the shutters at 7:30 on Friday morning to be greeted by a view of green hills, masts and palm trees, so on went the t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops and away to get some milk for the coffee and some fruit juice to help us get the day under way.

Then off for breakfast at Gennakers restaurant next to the Horizon office before the seemingly endless paperwork to be sorted out. Then some retail therapy to get a few things (reefs, sunglass straps, something to try and stop the waterproof camera sinking like a stone). Sunshine was ready for us by 12:00, so we were able to check out of the hotel and get our stuff on board. After a terrific briefing from Georgina (English girl out there with one of the best jobs, ever) and getting all loaded up with provisions from Bobby's, we were able to get off the dock by 2pm as we'd hoped.

Georgina took us out of the marina and pointed the back of the boat at the fuel dock, before stepping away from the wheel and handing Sunshine over to me. At the time I was messing around with the dock ropes with my mind miles away, so it was a jolt back to reality when I realised I had to back close enough in to let her step off the boat without hitting the dock.

Having successfully negotiated this, we headed out the marina entrance and headed South towards Norman Island. With a strong wind and choppy seas, we motored the short distance, the only minor inconvenience was getting the dinghy from the bow to the stern. This would have been fairly straightforward in flat calm, but it was an early test with the boat pitching and rolling.

Still, an hour later we arrived in the Bight at Norman Island. Despite the strong wind, Missy managed to pick up a mooring buoy at the first attempt, Yay.

Then it was off to Pirates for the first painkillers and conch fritters of the trip before we headed back to the boat and crashed out exhausted.

50 Not Out - Day 0: The Longest Day

2008-04-15T12:16:00.006+01:00

It seemed like March 6th went on forever. The flight to Antigua is at the relatively civilised hour of 11:15, so we didn't exactly have to get up in the wee small hours of the night to get to Gatwick on time, although we did have to give ourselves enough time to finalise the packing (Mainly consisting of removing stuff from the bags when we reminded ourselves how little of what we took last time we'd actually worn). AGM provided a very nice Mercedes to take us to the airport. We didn't have to worry about making small talk with the driver, because he barely paused for breath for the whole journey.

The baggage drop and security at Gatwick was relatively painless, apart from the Eastern European couple behind us in the security queue who seemed to have no concept of personal space and were bumping us constantly until I turned round and politely (no, really) told them to back off.

BA get a fair amount of stick these days, but (touch wood) compared to US airlines, they are pretty good. The trip down to Antigua was no exception to the last few BA flights I've taken. The food was OK, the seats comfortable, the attendents not too slow with the booze, and the movie selection broad.

I'm still scratching my head as to how The Coen brothers got so many awards for No Country for Old Men, though. What could have been a great, if violent film, dropped a bunch of threads about three quarters of the way through and sputtered to a pointless halt. But I digress...

We had a fair amount of time to wait in Antigua for our Liat flight to the BVI and so are grateful for "Billionaire Antigua-based Texan financier Alan Stanford"'s grandiose personal cricket ground across the road from the airport and the Sticky Wicket bar and restaurant that it contains. It was a very pleasant place to kill a few hours before returning to the airport.

Back at the airport, Liat were having problems with the aircraft (Not that they initially bothered to tell anybody). Eventually, after a couple of hours delay, they found a smaller aircraft, bounced a bunch of dismayed passengers who were hoping to get to St Martin that night and dropped the scheduled stop on the way to Tortola.

I'd called the taxi company who were meeting us on arrival to tell them we were going to be late, so there wasn't a problem when we arrived, although the fact that the first thing the driver asked was if we'd called the hotel to tell *them* that we'd be late made me worry. When we left the Nanny Cay Hotel at 6:00am on our previous trip, I remembered that the reception was in darkness and we'd slid our key cards under the door of the lobby.

It was 12:15am (4:15am body clock time) when we arrived at the hotel and our hearts sank when we saw that there wasn't a single light on in the place. Fortunately it turns out that there is a 24 hour security guy who saw us on the CCTV and was able to check us in. We had visions of spending our first night on the island sleeping on the beach.

As it was, we were able to crash into bed after being awake for 22 hours. We slept pretty well, oddly enough.

50 Not Out - Looming on the Horizon

2008-04-15T11:32:00.007+01:00

Getting to 50 is always going to be a slightly traumatic experience. It takes a lot of self-delusion to convince yourself that you're young and hip - a lot more than I possess. After a short period of reflecting on the prospect shortly after my 49th birthday, I decided that the best way to deal with the situation was to focus on the positives and work on some of the negatives of increasing maturity.

Focussing on the positives is an easy thing to do. I count my blessings pretty much every day. I have a wonderful wife, a son who finally seems to be shaking off the teenage lethargy and becoming a fine young man, and of course a dog who manages to make me laugh out loud most days. We have a house that we're happy in and enough money coming in through the door to be able to get it looking the way we want to. We can also just about afford to run Moonshine, even if that means that the old Volvo has had to soldier on for a few more years than it would otherwise have had to.

The main negative that could be relatively easily dealt with has been a steadily expanding waistline caused by all the comfortable living, which led to a warning about blood pressure and cholesterol from the doc a couple of years go. So since October, Missy and I have both been working hard at the gym and swapping high calorie goodies for fruit and salads. We've both lost about 20lb since then and feel much fitter and healthier. With me being only four years younger than the age at which my father suffered his first heart attack, it's probably an important lifestyle change.

To celebrate the actual start of my second half century, there could only ever be one place to be. We loved our trip to the BVI in 2005, but missed out on visiting Anegada due to some unsettled weather. What better way could there be to mark a significant personal milestone than watching the sunset from a beach restaurant on one of the world's most beautiful islands , with a cocktail in one hand and locally caught lobsters on the grill.

So, on 6th March 2008, we headed off for ten days sailing the BVI. The most direct way of getting there is to Antigua with BA, so we also tacked on a couple of days there at the end of the trip to give ourselves a soft landing back to reality.

Oops.

2008-03-03T12:06:00.002Z

I procrastinated too much this weekend, so didn't get to the marina until 1pm on Sunday afternoon. That meant that I had time to finish all the hull jobs - getting the anodes on, the prop polished, waxing the hull and getting the last coat of antifoul on - but I didn't get to check the mast electrics until after 3pm. It looks like I need to replace the steaming/deck light on the mast, which is badly corroded. Trouble is, by the time I worked that out, I hadn't left enough time to buy another one.

Moonshine is supposed to be back in the water on week commencing March 17th and I won't be able to get back down there until March 28th at the earliest, so the reason I spent money getting the mast lowered, making sure all the mast lights were fine, hasn't happened!

Darn it.

Ah well, BVI in three days, so mustn't grumble.

Elbow Grease

2008-02-25T15:46:00.007Z

The number of days before Moonshine is due back in the water is rapidly reducing, so I had to shake off the winter blues and get myself down to Chichester to get her ready. Any work on the deck can wait until she's back in the water, but anything that's going to be close to or under water has to be done pretty much now.

The bottom was power washed when she came out, most of the sea life was blasted off. After two years in the water though, she was looking a bit sad and grubby.

I'd intended to start work at the beginning of February, but the usual inertia meant that it was February 16th when I actually started. However, after two weekends of hard graft, a liberal spattering of blue antifoul and bleeding fingers and knuckles, she now looks like this:

I'm very pleased with myself at the transformation. I wasn't really expecting to get such good results.

There are a few more jobs to be done. Another coat of antifoul on the rudder and the front of the keel. I need to check the mast electrics before it goes back on, and I want to fit a proper ladder at the back, but so far, so good!

High and Dry

2007-11-16T09:51:00.000Z

Well, we had a call yesterday to say that Moonshine's out of the water, so it must officially be winter.

I'm champing at the bit to see her so that I can discover how much work we have to do before she can go back in again, but it's all busy, busy at the moment, so it looks like it will be at least two weeks before we get down there.

Anyway, the sea dawg will have to endure a few days like this:

Before she gets days like this:

On the bright side, we're only 25 days before the earliest sunset of the year, so it'll soon be spring :-)

Ready For Winter

2007-11-15T10:08:00.000Z

Well, that's about it until March 2008. Moonshine's sails are at Arun Sails to be washed and repaired. I've been down and put in clean engine oil, the mast electrics have been disconnected, the water tank is empty, the bedding and crockery are waiting to go into the attic.

Today, Chris Holman is taking down the mast and tomorrow she's being lifted out of the water for the winter. Between now and March we need to get her polished, repainted and anti-fouled and do some general repairs to various holes and scrapes around the deck, plus replace the teak grab rails. We're going to be very busy, especially as we're re-doing the living room at home.

Our next sailing will be somewhat warmer. We'll be limin' in the BVI in March for a couple of weeks of conch fritters, lobster, sun, sea and too much rum. We've chartered this rather pretty Beneteau 323.

In a nice coincidence, she's named "Sunshine", so we should feel at home.

Dawg Heaven

2007-10-31T11:40:00.000Z

Nothing to do with boats, but the first mate has had to work from the office recently, so the sea dawg has acquired a dog-walker for a couple of days a week.

She snoozes most of the time we're away, but now she gets woken up, whisked into the back of a Honda estate with eight other waggy, excited dogs, gets to run around the woods with her very own pack for a couple of hours, before being deposited home and snoozing until we get back.

I'm trying to work out what she must make of her new, exciting life. It must be like some doggy vision of paradise. Or does it seem like one of her dreams when she's fast asleep but twitching and woofing, presumably chasing cats and squirrels?

Smash and Grab.

2007-10-26T11:10:00.000+01:00

We thought that the trip with Mark and Helen was probably the last of the season, but when Saturday dawns bright and sunny, what can you do?

Up at 8am, out by 10:00, on the boat by 11:15, out at the beginning of freeflow, a lovely sail down to Bembridge with the sun shining and an East wind giving us a very kind broad reach. We were the last fin keel boat into Bembridge at around 3:30pm. We had plenty of water under the keel, but the water was really streaming out at 2 hours after high water.

We rafted up against two very nice boats with very understanding couples who didn't mind a dappy boxer trampling all over the place and Clemmie was gambolling on the dunes in the sunshine by 4pm.

We had a couple of glasses of pink wine (Last of the summer wine?) and headed up the hill to St Helens for dinner and the rugby. Watching the rugby more in hope than expection, it was a very happy pair of us who headed back down the hill in the dark a few hours later. (Ha - the head torch wasn't so silly now, was it?).

Sunday was just as wonderfully warm and sunny, so we had a really lovely morning, fetching the papers, coffee and rolls in the sunshine, a walk on the beach and away by 11:30.

The wind wasn't quite as kind to us on the way back and we had to motor from a couple of miles West of East Head, but the sun was still shining, the sea was blue and it really felt like August. We scraped in at the very end of freeflow and were home for tea by 6pm.

One of the nicest weekends we've had. I guess the feeling that we were somehow cheating by being out there so unexpectedly made it all the sweeter.

Stolen Weekend.

2007-10-26T09:19:00.000+01:00

Last year, we didn't manage to get out in Moonshine after the August Bank Holiday. Missy was recovering from surgery and the October weather was awful, I had the woodwork off for varnishing by mid month. This year, however, we've had two fantastic weekends to finish the season.

We'd arranged a weekend out with Mark and Helen some time ago for October 6th and 7th. I wasn't expecting much from the weather given the time of year, but it looks like 2007 will be remembered for the terrific weather at either end of the season and not much in the middle.

We travelled down on Friday evening (Ship at Itchenor, fish n chips x 2)to get things fettled so that we'd be ready to get out early, with Mark and Helen coming down early on Saturday. The ulterior motive was to get to Cowes in time to see the Rugby World Cup 1/4 final match against Australia.

We had a very pleasant sail over to Cowes with brilliant sunshine and the wind almost cooperating. From the East, which made things nice and calm, but with a few shifts making it hard to avoid the occasional gybe (mostly planned ones, but a couple of "oops" ones). I did cheat a bit, motoring for the last few miles to make sure we got to see some rugby.

Apple, Banana, Carrot, Desk, Elephant, Frog, Giraffe, Hotel, Iguana, Jellybeans, Kangol flat cap......I got sucked into Missy's favourite travelling game somehow. I'll never get those out of my memory now.

We just about managed to squeeze onto a pontoon at East Cowes. We had to reverse in and had about 3 metres of Moonshine alongside and 5 sticking out the front. I was going to suggest to the nice marina people that we should only pay 1/2 price, but they were already grumbling that they weren't making any money because it's now winter rates, so I thought I'd better not push my luck.

We actually got to see most of the second half of England's shock win against the Aussies at the Lifeboat Inn. (surprisingly good, I'm always a bit suspicious of any pub built in the last 100 years or so). It was very pleasant sitting in the sunshine on the terrace watching the boats go by and smirking about putting the Aussies out of the World Cup.

Dinner was, predictably, at the Folly. We took the Folly water bus down there for the first time, which was pretty cool. I'm not sure why, but the trip made eating down there feel something of an adventure. The Folly was busy, but the extremely efficient waitress found us a table while we had a beer on the terrace.

Clemmie got very spoiled with leftover ham and lamb, so much so that she wouldn't eat her kibble and was really rather ill on Sunday. Ooops, bad dog-parents.

The crew were a bit lethargic on Sunday morning. I'd showered and taken Clemmie for a walk into East Cowes to get a newspaper before I could rouse anyone else. Shocking behaviour. I wonder if bringing back the lash is an option?

I abandoned my plan of filling up with diesel because the fuel dock was busy, reasoning that we'd got enough fuel to get us home unless there was absolutely no wind and we had to motor the whole way, and the chances of that were so remote as to be laughable.

Anyway, we put into Gosport at about 2:45pm to fill her up, which was nice. We got to see the Spinnaker tower at close quarters and everything. The crew were very understanding about the whole thing and didn't spend the entire journey back giving me grief about it, oh no.

Anyway, after our slight detour into Portsmouth Harbour, we got back into Chichester just as free-flow started, so that was OK.

So, a hugely enjoyable, warm, sunny October weekend. It really did feel like we were getting something for nothing.

September Week IV - Home

2007-10-24T13:28:00.000+01:00

Not much to report on the way back to Chichester. After a leisurely breakfast we headed out into the river, very conscious of the shiny big boats all around us and the ebbing tide. We felt that we were disturbing the peace with the engine, so we got the genoa up to give us some steering, turned the engine off and just drifted down on the tide.

We had just enough wind to get us home, although we had the engine on around Cowes to avoid a huge number of kevlar sails milling around. After that, it was pretty much like this all the way back to Chichester.

All in all, a great week of fairly undemanding sailing in pleasant weather. We got to Lymington, Newtown and Beaulieu for the first time before heading back, which means we've done most the "destination" places in the Solent now.

September Week III - A Spot of Yachting.

2007-10-23T11:54:00.000+01:00

Lymington-Beaulieu is barely a sail at all, so we were able to spend the morning in Lymington. Missy needed some contact lens solution. (She found out the painful way that the bottle she'd brought along was contact lens cleaner, not saline) and we needed to order some flowers for my mum's birthday on the Thursday.

I'd always mentally got Lymington down as a dull, grey town, so was surprised to see that it's colourful and bustling. It took me a while to work out that the only two times I've been there previously were in the evening out of season in April.

I said that Lymington - Beaulieu is barely a sail at all. This about sums it up:

The Beaulieu River is surrounded by the New Forest and is stunningly tranquil and beautiful. It's been owned by the Montagu family for centuries and development has been kept to a minimum, although Bucklers Hard was once a major shipbuilding centre when ships were made of oak, and was active as recently as WWII when parts of the Mulberry floating docks used in the Normandy landings were built there.

Once you get past the spit at the river entrance, channel markers become decidedly low-tech.

The marina is the opposite to Lymington, it's small and peaceful. On second thoughts they're not exactly opposite, they're both similarly and frighteningly expensive.

We headed over to the Master Builder pub at Bucklers Hard for a couple of drinks before we ate. On a calm and warm late summer evening, there can't be many nicer places to sit and listen to your dog beg for treats.

We even had the treat of encountering Tom Cunliffe holding court at the bar. Tom's probably the nearest thing to a British sailing celeb that we have. Apparently he'd been doing "A spot of yachting" that day, which I guess we were doing too. His boat, Westernman, is moored just down the river and is really rather beautiful.

Despite appearances, she's only ten years old, being built for Tom in the style of a Bristol pilot cutter.

All in all a very pleasant day indeed, although we did spend more time in the pub than actually sailing, but you can't be an intrepid adventurer every day.

Oh, and we actually cooked on the boat for once. Pasta, meatballs, salad and a very nice red.

September Week II - Cowes to Lymington

2007-10-23T11:19:00.000+01:00

The weather really improved on Tuesday. The contrast with our last trip West of Cowes in July (ripped genoa, broken traveller) was stark.

It's not really a full day's trip to Lymington from the Folly, although it was nice and relaxing. It did mean that we had time to stop off in Newtown Creek for lunch. There was barely a breath of wind by now, and we had to put a tarpaulin up to shade Clemmie, but it was beautiful and there was even a spare mooring buoy to pull up to, so we didn't even have to break our duck on anchoring.

If we didn't have Clemmie on board we could have stayed all day, but we made the short trip to Lymington for the night. We sailed most of the way, but as we approached Lymington, we came across a matched racing fleet of Beneteau 40.7's, doing the most weirdly complex course. (Up/Down/Up/Down past the first buoy/Across/etc.

With the wind getting up and not much chance of predicting what they were going to do, we got the sails down and motored around them and on into Lymington, following the Yarmouth Ferry in.

We didn't have the greatest of berths at the Berthon marina, being right up against the wall. It was convenient, but a bit industrial, all concrete and cranes. It won't be our first choice next time we head over there. The Town Quay looks more fun, although we'd have to be there fairly early to avoid rafting a long way out.

First choice for dinner was the recently renovated Ship Inn. Trouble is, it's not dawg-friendly and the place is a long way up itself. Overly primped and preened, with bored-looking waiting and barstaff. We declined the opportunity to sit outside and, after a quick recce up the hill, found the Kings Head. The sign in the window saying "Dogs Welcome" was reassuring and we were very happy in a traditional local boozer with decent food and beer and friendly staff.

September Week. I - Chichester to Cowes.

2007-10-23T10:22:00.000+01:00

Not quite a a week, more than a long weekend, but at last we had some decent weather and a few days off to use it.

Reasons to buy a boat - 103

If you stay at home, you may be tempted to change the brake pads on your car to save money.

You get filthy and tweak a muscle in your back. It's worth paying someone else.

But anyway, we travelled down to the boat on Sunday, intending to head off to the Folly for dinner. It was supposed to be F3-4 according to the board at the marina. That's not what it felt like as we rounded Chichester Bar at about 3pm and realised that we'd have the wind on the nose and a nasty 1 metre chop for the five hours or so to Cowes.

Missy looked awfully relieved when I suggested that we turned straight around and had fish and chips at the Ship instead!

Our second attempt was much smoother. We still had a decent breeze on Monday morning, so kept the main reefed down, but the sea was much flatter and the sun started to shine, so it turned out to have been a good decision.

I was feeling so confident that I decided that I was going to sail down to the Folly with the wind behind us. Fortunately I remembered the chain ferry before we got into the river. There would have been much chaos and panic on Moonshine if it pulled out in front of us, so the sails came down pretty quickly!

We parked on the visitor's pontoon about twenty minutes before the water taxi started up, so Clemmie had to cross her legs for a while, since she's still not prepared to wee on anything but solid, dry land, preferably with a nice patch of grass.

Dinner was great. A huge piece of ham hock for Missy, which was big enough for Clemmie to get the leftovers as a treat in each meal for the next three days.

Pavla and Tomas. August 11th-12th

2007-08-23T11:36:00.000+01:00

With the first mate in North Carolina administering to her convalescing mom, it looked like this weekend was going to be a wash out. I'd planned on going down to the boat with the sea dawg to do a bit of work on Moonshine, but mainly to go and drink beer.

However, with the start of the football season, Nick was committed to spending the weekend at work on the Premier League website, so Pavla and her young cousin Tomas were at a loose end, so they got press ganged into going down to Moonshine for the weekend.

Pavla was working on Saturday morning, so that left us a shortened weekend, so we were never going to get very far from the dock. The weather was kind, so we had a nice walk around the harbour to Dell Quay, so Clemmie could get her usual amount of fussing and attention at the Crown and Anchor.

Sunday free-flow was ideal for getting a novice crew out into the harbour without minimum fuss. After scaring them both with a safety briefing, we headed out with the intention of getting the two landlocked Czechs out to the "open sea" wherever that may be!

In the end we decided that the Bar Beacon must qualify for that accolade and fortunately, we had just enough time to motor out there, spin around and return to the dock about 10 minutes before the end of free-flow.

Tomas was a star, a definite sailor in the making. He steered most of the way back to the marina and handled the fenders and mooring ropes with confidence. I hope he wasn't too disappointed that we didn't get the sails up, but the harbour was as crowded as I've seen it and with a fair breeze, I didn't want too push our luck too far.

Oh, and I managed to fix the broken traveller piece. It's amazing what you can do with a hammer! Good job too. There's still no sign of a replacement from RWO's distributors.

Goodwood and Picnics - August 4th-5th

2007-08-19T22:09:00.000+01:00

The beginning of August is one of the last events of the English summer season, the Goodwood Festival meeting - Glorious Goodwood, so we donned our best summer threads and headed off with Mark and Helen.

Lord March hasn't been impressed with the standard of dress and behaviour and, to be honest, neither were we. By and large most people made the effort, but there were too many charabanc-loads of lads and lasses out to drink as much as they could without too much interest in it being a race meeting. It's also a victim of its own success in that it's practically impossible to circulate from parade ring to bookies, to the course and to the bars, simply due to the number of people.

Next year we'll be taking the panama hat and linen suit into the Richmond enclosure for either the July or August bank holiday meeting. Fewer people and fewer drunks.

Ooeee, smokin'!

Perhaps I'd have been less jaundiced about the day if I'd actually backed some horses that could manage more than a gentle trot around the course!

Anyway, we had a very pleasant meal at the Cider House restaurant in Apuldram, and on Sunday we took the advice of a very nice couple who we met in Yarmouth in July and took Moonshine up to Thorney Channel, where we grabbed a vacant buoy and had a very pleasant picnic in the harbour in a wonderful, peaceful spot.

On the way back to the main Chichester channel, in another little coincidence, we passed by the couple in their boat "Arrival", just coming back in to their mooring.

Wild Week. July 7th-14th. pt II

2007-08-19T15:58:00.000+01:00

So, it was Thursday morning and the weather forecast was diabolical and looking to get worse. It was clear we weren't going to be going to Poole with rather bedraggled boat, but were we going to be able to get home? Should we wait until the forecast looked better or make a run for it? We eventually decided that we'd head off just before the tide changed and see how far we could comfortably reach before we had enough. Swanwick (Premier marina and therefore free for us as visitors) was potential stop number one and Gosport (same again!) was number 2.

The first hour out was slow going under the genoa only, with the tide against us, but was much calmer since we were travelling downwind.

Summer sailing, gotta love it!

As we approached Cowes, it became obvious that we weren't going to need Swanwick. With the wind and tide behind us we were doing a minimum of 6.5 knots over the ground. We even risked putting up a (very reefed) main. The sun came out as we came past Cowes and it actually turned into a very pleasant day for a sail.

Clemmie had had enough of the whole thing by now though, and had taken to her bed!

Anyway, we passed Portsmouth Harbour by 5pm, so we didn't need Gosport. We passed West Pole on our way into a wonderfully peaceful and deserted Chichester Harbour at about 6pm and were tied up by 7:30 after one of our best sails ever, following our worst the day before.

By 8pm we were in the Ship at Itchenor enjoying what felt like an extremely well-deserved dinner.

Wild Week. July 7th-14th. pt I

2007-08-19T14:59:00.000+01:00

OK, it's July. That means we're safe booking a week away on the boat and enjoying some fine weather. We may even get across to Poole if we're feeling brave.

Huh. As if.

We went down to the boat on Saturday evening with the intention of heading out on Sunday morning. Sunday was a little too wild and windy, as was Monday. We did have some great fish and chips at the Ship at Itchenor, but it wasn't quite what we were supposed to be doing.

Eventually on Tuesday, things calmed down and we headed out towards Cowes. Not much to report, really. The wind was on the nose, so we had to motor all the way. We had the Folly visitors pontoons to ourselves and had the novelty of having to get the dinghy blown up to cross back and forth across the river. Clemmie didn't seem to fazed by being in there, although once the water taxi started operating at 6pm, she obviously much preferred that. I'm glad we bought the old 3 metre Avon rather than a newer, smaller dinghy. I was grateful for the extra space and stability.

On Wednesday we headed out towards Yarmouth. At first things went well. We were a bit late setting off, because of walking the dawg, so that we only had a small window with the tide in our favour, but that didn't seem too much of a problem with only 11 miles to travel.

The wind was still coming from the West, but with a decent breeze and the tide with us, we were able to make good progress with tacks across to the Beaulieu river and down to Newtown as we tacked away from Newtown, though, we hit the first of our problems. The breeze was getting stronger and we decided to call it a day with the sails and finish the trip with the motor. Unfortunately, the genoa didn't want to furl and it took a good three or four minutes to get it put away, by which time the leech of the sail was looking very tattered. We continued with the wind getting stronger, the waves getting higher and the tide now completely against us.

I'd left the main sail up for stability, but after about 30 minutes, there was a bang and the boom and mainsheet were suddenly flapping free. After we managed to get things back under control and the mainsheet lashed down, I realised that the U shaped piece connecting the main sheet block to the traveller was now a nice J shape. Great!

We eventually limped into Yarmouth harbour with things pretty wild and windy. There were a few bedraggled looking people on the pontoon that evening!

Next day we were able to take stock of the damage. Fortunately the only thing damaged on the genoa was the UV strip. The stitching had just unravelled as the sail flogged while I tried to winch it in.

Somehow someone had managed to put the traveller in place with the retaining pin under the shackle out of alignment, so that only one side was secured. I'm surprised it had lasted as long as it did, to be honest.

Bizarre aside:

In the evening, we took the water taxi across the harbour to go and have some dinner. As we walked up the steps, a female voice called, "Paul Hughes?" I looked round and it was my cousin, Pam. This wasn't so very odd, because she lives in Freshwater, but I haven't seen her for years. What was odd was that she was there because she was waiting for my other cousin, Mick, and his wife to arrive on the ferry. Mick and Lynne live in Australia and I haven't seen them for about twenty five years or more. They were on a flying visit to visit Pam on their way to France, so in an astonishing coincidence, we all found ourselves at the same spot at the same time. We had a ten minute conversation and then went our own ways. Weird.

Whitstable and Canterbury June 28th-30th.

2007-08-19T14:33:00.000+01:00

Not much sailing got done for the rest of June, with the weather being wet, windy and miserable. Missy's mom came over for the last two weeks and we mainly sat watching it rain, ugh.

We did venture out to spend a couple of days in Whitstable dodging the showers, though and can highly recommend the original Wheeler's restaurant on the High Street. Still called Wheelers, although not part of the chain. It's a wonderfully quirky little place, with a seafood bar at the front and five tables in a 12'x12' room at the back. There's no drinks licence, but there's a Thresher's opposite. The food is absolutely wonderful.

We managed to see Canterbury Cathedral in between the downpours. It's an amazingly historic and beautiful building, but we decided that the stone carving at Southwell Minster is better :-)

Canterbury really is a beautiful city and we must get back there one day when we actually get a proper summer. I'm not sure about the standard of build of some of the houses there, though.

Black Holes and Red Arrows. June 9-10th.

2007-08-19T12:58:00.000+01:00

With the weather in May being pretty dismal, our next trip out of the harbour was to the IOW on the festival weekend of June 8th-10th. We wanted to head down to The Folly for the night and we knew that things would be busy because of the Festival, so we slipped away from Chichester at 7:00am, much earlier than our usual later-than-we-intended time away.

It was a beautiful still morning as we headed down the harbour. For once the water wasn't churned up by all the day's activity and it was lovely having the glassy water to ourselves.

The wind was very hit and miss as we headed along the Solent as sea breezes began to fill in on both the island and the mainland. Coming up towards Osbourne House with the wind behind us, we were treated to the slightly worrying sight of a fleet of Sunsail boats racing towards us with their spinnakers flying. Fortunately it gave us opportunity to get the main sheet hauled in before the inevitable gybe.

Inevitably, the Folly visitors pontoons were busy. Our early start meant that wthe pontoons were full of boats on a lunch stop, which led to some interesting organisation and re-organisation as boats on the inside of the rafts had to get out. I'm still wondering if the Irish boat on the outside of four noticed that the boat inside of him wasn't the one that was there when he'd left for lunch.

As the afternoon turned to early evening, we were treated to a fantastic display by the Red Arrows, performing for the festival, but often being directly over us. It really was an awesome free show on the few really hot and sunny days of June.

Dinner at the Folly was eaten to a soundtrack of Amy Winehouse and we drifted off to sleep with the sound of Muse's Black Holes and Revelations coming over the water. Pretty cool.

Apparently it was somewhat crowded on the water down towards Newport. This was taken in the afternoon, before the crowds really started to arrive.

Returning home the next day, we had a great sail back to Chichester, with sunshine and a nice South Westerly breeze giving us a reach for most of the day. Things changed dramatically as we passed by the forts and the submarine barrier, though. A thick sea fret rolled in, reducing visibility to just a few tens of metres where we were and, apparently, less behind us. We could hear the horns of the ferries in the Solent, but headed past Hayling Island without seeing anything very much at all.

Amazingly, the thick mist only made it a few hundred yards onshore and we were in bright sunshine as we passed the Winner bank, very odd.

Tarbert 2007: Peace, Love and Reefing.

2007-05-09T13:17:00.000+01:00

Well, we're back safely from Tarbert after finishing slightly above our usual bringing-up-the-rear position in 10th place out of 13. Generally, the view looked something like this:

This year's crew in the evocatively-named Sunsail 76 were skipper Ken, plus us two, Cheryl, Bisi and Mark, plus two Beryl Bravo lads, Paul and Angus. The weather was fairly lively at times, particularly on Sunday afternoon. The BBC was reporting gusts of around 36 knots, so it got a bit bumpy. Great sailing weather, but not really in the spirit of picnics in he harbour!

Saturday night was more surreal than usual. Here's the crew all dressed up in our best hippy gear for the Saturday night fancy dress.

We're outside the Anchor Hotel in Tarbert in the picture. Inside, the decoration in the bar was different to last year, with the ceiling covered in draped cloth. Very exotic, we thought. As it began to rain outside, though, it became apparent that the cloth wasn't there for decoration, but instead to prevent dust and dirt covering the bar while the roof was being replaced. We were soon trying to find spots inside where we weren't being dripped on, while the staff tried to find enough mops and buckets to keep the floor reasonably dry. An odd evening.

Sunday was an interesting day's sailing, with strong winds at the beginning, lightening during the middle, and strengthening again in the afternoon, so that we entered Kip Marina with the weather blowing an absolute hooley.

Missy was suitably dressed for anything that the weather could throw at us.

Tarbert time

2007-05-02T10:25:00.000+01:00

This coming weekend will have a change of scenery. We're heading up to Scotland for the annual ExxonMobil Tarbert Challenge. This year's event will have 13 boats and over 100 people competing (sort of) for a range of trophies loosely based on a weekend of racing from Largs to Tarbert and back.

If the last few years are anything to go by, we'll be watching the rest of the fleet heading off into the distance. It'll be fun though.

This is last year's finely-tuned racing crew.

Hard Labour.

2007-04-30T11:29:00.000+01:00

Three weeks ago we used some wire wool to get the worst of the corrosion off of the samson post at the front of the boat. It seemed to work, so all well and good.

The trouble is that wire wool is made of iron and after a couple of weeks of salty sea air, all the tiny little flecks of wire that I'd washed over the side when we cleaned up, are now tiny little flecks of rust, bleeding all down the side of the boat.

So, this weekend was one of hard labour. We went down to the boat on Saturday afternoon and I spent a couple of hours working up a sweat t-cutting and polishing the cockpit. Missy and Clemmie spent an equally industrious couple of hours dozing on the top of the coachroof in the sunshine. The poor things were exhausted at the end of it.

Katharine Henry ACMA. came down to see us on Saturday evening, carrying a welcome bottle of pink fizz to celebrate the addition of those last four letters after her name. (She's now officially a Chartered Management Accountant), so I was allowed to stop working my fingers down to stubs to share in the celebration, Yay.

The wind and tides were all wrong this weekend to do anything very interesting (low tide mid-afternoon, brisk winds on Saturday), but we had a pleasant little sail around the harbour on Sunday morning to work up an appetite for lunch, we got the sails up on the way to Itchenor and headed in a stately starboard tack fashion through the massed ranks of racing dinghys, enjoying the experience of actually having some of them being the give way boat occasionally.

We sailed down just past East Head and were going to try and sail back, but with the wind wandering through 180 degrees at times and the tide ebbing pretty quickly, we motored back up to the marina. Not very exciting, but at least the sun shone and Katharine got to see more than Pontoon F.

Then it was back to more hard labour for me to try and get those rust marks out of Moonshine's sides. So the dinghy got inflated and I spent the next couple of hours bobbing around with a pan scourer and t-cut. (Actually Liquid Rubbing, especially made for boats and therefore three times the price). I got most of the marks off eventually, but that's the last time that wire wool gets used on Moonshine!

Another Sunny Sunday.

2007-04-26T13:55:00.000+01:00

Bembridge was a great place to be for an early Sunday morning. The tide times meant that we wanted to be away by about 1pm, so we were up early (for us) to have time to enjoy where we were.

The view from the end of the pontoon was like this:

and a walk along the dunes and around a headland took us to this spot.

What you can't see of course is that Clemmie was full of seawater by this point - stupid dog.

It didn't seem to affect her too much as she enjoyed her new favourite spot on the boat.

We eventually got away at about 2pm, part of the mass exodus of the harbour as the tide rises and just squeezed into Chichester before the end of freeflow, in our usual state - tired but happy.

Bembridge.

2007-04-26T13:21:00.000+01:00

Over the Easter weekend, we shared a water taxi from East to West Cowes with two very nice members of the Chichester Yacht Club, who recommended heading to Bembridge for a pleasant weekend.

We'd thought of going last year, but been a little, well, scared of the shallow, winding channel into Bembridge Harbour. I mean, when the Bembridge Harbour website itself has not one, but two pictures of boats aground, it's a bit worrying for novices like us.

Well, we're supremely confident veterans of almost two trips to the Isle of Wight now, so we say "pfft" and "pfffar" to the dangers.

A little light passage planning showed high tide to be at about 2pm on Saturday and access to Bembridge is about 2 1/2 hours either side of that. Ideally we wanted to be in on a rising tide (so that if I did accidentally get stuck, there'd be at least some chance of getting off) and about 4 hours to the trip, meant we needed to be away by around 9am. So instead of Friday night drinks at the George, we headed down to Chichester (and dinner at Dell Quay) so that we could have an early start.

A little more passage planning would have made me realise that low tide at Chichester was at 8:06, so there was never a chance of quite meeting our deadline. However, we did get away from the dock just in time (about 10:00). We were able to head straight for the lock, but by the time we actually got through it, they were already giving out number 20 in the queue to a boat calling in.

Nothing much to report about the short (14 mile or so) trip. We had a nice SE wind, perfect for our SW journey. A little stronger than last week, but Missy was just about able to cope with the extra swell.

We reached the Tide Gauge which marks the entrance to the channel and were relieved to see that there are enough buoys marking the channel to wonder how him up there managed to finish up on the sand like that.

The Bembridge Harbour guys were great. They found us a spot on the pontoon and were able to talk us into the tiny gap between yachts rafted three deep in front and behind us, took our lines and generally couldn't have been more helpful or friendly.

So time for a picnic in Bembridge Harbour. This is Missy replete after a little light lunch and a couple of glasses of pink wine.

If Clemmie looks a little strange, that's the tail end of a yawn going on.

The pontoon leads through the Duver boatyards and straight onto sand dunes and the beach, so it's an idyllic spot.

Clemmie had a great time, but got into severe trouble. In the picture above, there's a straight wall just underneath the line of the trees. That's a wall that crosses the harbour, enclosing a tidal mill pond. Half way across it, Clemmie decided that a patch of floating weed was solid ground and jumped onto it, ignoring my yells.

It took some effort and scraped knees and elbows to scramble down the wall and pull a very chastened and scared little dog out of the water. She heard the words "You Stupid, Stupid Dog" quite a lot over the next day or so.

Dinner was at the Vine up the hill in St Helens. A fairly no-nonsense local, but with a decent food menu and atmosphere. Yet another dog-friendly place. We've been really lucky so far, Clem even got biscuits from the barmaid.

An early night this time. We were both exhausted and even Dark Side of the Moon played late and loudly by the Jeanneau in front of us didn't bother us much. (It bothered most of the other boats though!)

Fettlin' and Visitin'

2007-04-25T13:09:00.000+01:00

We only had one day for Moonshine on the weekend of April 14/15th, because we were heading up to Kingston Blount to see Pete, Tanya and baby Ellie on Sunday. Ellie was born in August and we hadn't seen her, so it was a long overdue visit.

So on Saturday we had a proper working party. I got the netting finished, so Clem is nice and secure now and we made a decent start on t-cutting and polishing the topsides. If we're not careful Moonshine will start to actually look smart. I also managed to get a few bits fixed that had fallen apart over Easter, although I need to work out why we don't have a stern light or a white steaming light. (A bit academic since we have no intention of going out after dark just now!)

Sunday was lovely. Yet another weekend of warm, sunny weather. The Heath residence is picture postcard stuff even when the weather's not the best, so on a bright spring day that was convinced it was summer, it was beautiful.

Just the one pic, but a nice one, of a proud father and his girl.

Easter - Off and Running IV

2007-04-25T12:51:00.000+01:00

Monday - another beautiful bright, clear day, so breakfast and a walk around the area for Clem before heading off back to Chichester.

There wasn't much wind as we set off, but what little there was was more or less behind us and the tide was heading the same was as us too, so we had the most gentle sail/drift Eastwards, just watching the world go by. Fantastic conditions for building Missy's confidence a little more.

By this stage, the sea dawg was absolutely shattered from being unable to spend her usual 23 hours a day asleep. She didn't much move from this position for the whole trip back.

We thought we'd have to motor back the last bit as the wind died completely as we approached Portsmouth Harbour, but a sea breeze filled in nicely for the last part of the trip to whisk us home.

There was an unexpected traffic jam at the marina. We were expecting to head straight in with free flow, but the high pressure kept the water level down so there was 20 minutes of trying to keep station until the tide rose sufficiently. Interesting to hear the idiots complaining to the marina about free flow being late, ho hum.

Fantastic weekend. The best yet. Exactly what we'd hoped for when we bought Moonshine last year. Definite Picnics in the Harbour weather!

Easter - Off and Running III

2007-04-24T16:14:00.000+01:00

Our plan for Sunday was to head across to Beaulieu for lunch before heading back to Cowes for the evening.

So, we had breakfast, followed by a walk down towards Island Harbour marina with Clem to get rid of some of her excess bounce, followed by a once over of the boat next to us to try and get rid of the worst of her paw prints!

For the first time since June 11th 2006, we had to fill the tank with diesel, so we headed to a fuel berth on the way out. After a fairly clumsy docking effort (trying to come in with the tide to get the fuel filler on the right side - bad move), we parted with all of £12.41 to fill the tank. Perhaps I should put a two cylinder diesel in the Volvo.

Our Beaulieu plan didn't come to much. With wind and tide running West to East, we made very little progress Westwards towards the Beaulieu River entrance. How little progress we made can be seen from the fact that we had to get the motor on to get away from the Bramble West Cardinal mark just before this

swung past us.

The Cardinal mark is almost due North of Cowes, so we'd had practically no movement Westward in the couple of hours we'd been sailing. It was good practice, though and we eventually decided to swing around and head back into the Medina River.

Cowes Yacht Haven was full up, so we called up East Cowes again. They allocated us a berth rafting up against a very, very shiny new boat, so we told the nice young man sorting out berths from his rib that we had a dawg on board and were given a spot alongside the pontoon - result!

Nothing much to report from here on in. We had a little light lunch and a couple of glasses of wine. Clemmie and I then had a snooze while Missy headed off to the showers, then off to the Sally Taxi stop on the pontoon and over to Cowes for dinner at the Anchor.

We were slightly worried about whether the Anchor minded dogs, so snook her into the back room and under the table. We shouldn't have worried as about two minutes later a great dane the size of a pony wandered in, so yet another dog-friendly pub then.

Easter - Off and Running II

2007-04-24T15:09:00.000+01:00

Saturday was as perfect a day as was Friday. Blue skies and light winds meant that we could follow Plan A for just about the first time for us.

Well, it actually turned out to be Plan A2, because we spent longer than we'd expected showering, breakfasting, dawg walking, line organising etc, so it was about 13:00 before we actually got out of the dock. Actually Moonshine got out of the dock for us. I had A Plan involving Missy and ropes to make sure that our bow didn't hit the big old motor boat next to us, so I was busily concentrating on Missy and letting go of the stern line and hoping the tiller was pointing in the right direction, that I didn't notice that Moonshine had sort of shrugged and headed off in a perfect arc towards the fairway - Backwards. I tried to look as if that's absolutely what I'd intended and we headed off to the lock.

The winds were really light and our plan was to get to the Folly for the evening, so we finished up motoring the whole way. It was sort of a shame, but the weather was so perfect otherwise that it didn't really matter all that much.

We passed the de-liveried B&Q at about 6pm

and managed to find a nice spot against a not-too-shiny Beneteau 30 on the visitors pontoon down at the Folly.

Moonshine is somewhere among the throng over on the other side of the river.

Not surprisingly for a sunny Easter Saturday, The Folly was packed. We were impressed by their efficiency though. It took longer to queue to order the food than it took for it to arrive.

Another dawg friendly place, so Clem was happy again. We did find that she won't wee until she gets good solid earth under her feet. Despite the length of time she was cooped up on the boat, she would not go until the Folly water taxi delivered her to terra firma.

Easter - Off and Running I

2007-04-24T13:40:00.000+01:00

What a start to the sailing year this was. Blue skies, warm temperatures, light winds and a four day weekend to give us the opportunity to enjoy it all.

Good Friday was largely spent in the garden at home doing some tidying, but we arrived in Chichester at a reasonable hour for us. We had a quick trip to Aladdins Cave to get some Clemmie proof netting and (yippee) the chart software for the handheld GPS that was my Christmas present from Missy, and then on to Moonshine to do a little light (ha!) tidying up. A couple of hours of stanchion-polishing and puzzling about the best way to get the netting attached and then time for dinner at Dell Quay.

The netting means that Clemmie isn't restricted to the cockpit, so she's a happier dawg and mistress of all she surveys now.

April arrives

2007-04-24T13:30:00.000+01:00

The plan for the weekend of March 30th/April 1st was for me to spend the weekend by myself on Moonshine to get some fettling done.

Well, I sort of did. Ish. Nearly.

I did get there - on Sunday afternoon. It was hardly worth it, really, but I wanted to get the large items (mattresses, duvets) back on the boat so that we didn't have too much to get down there when we have the dawg in tow.

I did manage to get about four hours of sanding in before it was time to head home. Better than nothing, but not really enough to be shiny before her first sail of the year. After some consideration, I decided to oil the grabrails on the deck and the sides of the cabin opening rather than varnishing them. Now I'm not so sure. I thought it would make the wood look less plastic, but it just looks less shiny.

Come on You Rams

2007-04-24T13:11:00.000+01:00

The weekend of March 17th/18th was our first trip up to Keyworth since Christmas. My birthday/my dad's birthday and mothers' day all clustered together, so we headed up the M1 on Friday night.

Saturday was my dad's birthday treat. We occasionally go and see Derby if they're at home when I'm up there, but this time, I thought we'd go up-market and get a hospitality package for the Cardiff game. So rather than a gristly pie and a pint in the SW Corner, we had a very pleasant three course meal with wine in the Assa Suite, with nice comfortable padded seats on the balcony and the bar open through the game. Excellent.

We won the game 3-1, keeping us top of the league (for a while) and father got told off by one of the stewards for getting over-excited when the third goal went in.

Here's a not-very-helpful picture of him watching the second half, standing under a heating vent (smart move) just before getting told off :-)

Saturday evening was a very pleasant dinner at the Plough. Because Sunday was mothers' day, we'd decided to stay over until Monday morning rather than having to leave early Sunday evening.

This gave us the opportunity to actually have a few pints in the Plough rather than the usual quick one before we have to head home. An unexpected bonus was that it gave my dad chance to give Missy some elocution lessons shortly before she passed out.

Roma! - Tuesday

2007-04-11T18:23:00.000+01:00

Oops, four weeks since we got back and I haven't completed the account of the trip.

The Vatican museum was supposed to be part of Monday's trip, but we were too lazy, so today it was. The queues were alarming, stretching several hundred yards down the road from the entrance. Fortunately, it turns out that the museum is one slick operation and pushes a lot of people through its doors without too much hassle. There's not much room for quiet contemplation as you sort of drift along with the human tide through rooms and corridors.

Presumably because of the sheer volume of visitors, most of the rooms are fairly empty, with the interest being the staggeringly high quality of art on show on the walls and ceilings.

The Museum's virtual tour is a bit slow, but at least gives a flavour of the place.

Not much photography from me as we moved from room to room, but I did like this enormously long map gallery.

All paths in the museum lead to the Sistine Chapel and it doesn't disappoint. Fortunately, it's the only fairly open room on the tour, so it's possible to detach yourself from the tidal flow and pause for a while to take in one of the great pieces of world culture. It's a stunning place. Michaelangelo's two great works dominate. The set of panels making up the ceiling and the last judgement making up the whole of one wall are stunning. Below them, though are numerous masterpieces by renaissance artists, including Boticelli, which if anywhere else would be world famous in their own right.

So after our fill of culture, of course we had to go and have a final lunch back at Ristorante Edy before heading off back to Fiumicino and home.

A few more pics of the weekend are here.

Roma! - Monday.

2007-03-23T20:39:00.000Z

Monday started with some aching limbs after some serious walking on Saturday and Sunday, but with the skies still blue and the temperatures still in the mid 60's it was a perfect day to head off out being tourists once more.

Today we were heading to the Vatican to see Catholic Head Office. An easy trip from our hotel on the Metro, fortunately. We weren't really feeling up to another heavy duty walking day.

During our pit stop for caffe latte and pastries on the way towards the Vatican, though, we nearly had a disaster. Missy turned her ankle a while ago and it's been a bit temperamental ever since. While sitting drinking coffee, she moved and it went again. Oops. She wasn't able to put any weight on it at all, which was going to be a problem, even if we were only going to try and find a taxi to take us back to the hotel. There's a pharmacy every couple of hundred metres in Italy (I must find out if they're as hypochondriac as the pharmacy-density implies) so I headed off for bandages and some ibuprofen. As expected, it was a short trip, and I was only away for fifteen minutes or so. Fortunately in that time whatever had popped out on Missy's ankle popped back in again. As a precaution we strapped her up and she had a couple of ibuprofen in case there was any inflammation developing. Amazingly we didn't have much problem after that.

But I digress.

St Peter's Square looks impressive on the TV. Close up it's clear that if Gian Lorenzo Bernini was aiming for awe-inspiring when he designed the piazza and surrounding colonnades, he succeeded. Huge, symmetrical, dazzling marble. Wow.

Suitably impressed, we thought we'd head into the CEO's building - St Peter's Basilica. As ever, Wikipedia's St Peter's entry saves you the excesses of my prose.

Remember the Basilica di Constantino in the forum and the octagonal reliefs? Well Michaelangelo and Bernini were so impressed by them that they pretty much copied the design wholesale. The barrel vaulting of St Peter's shows what the Law Courts of Rome must have looked like 1300 years earlier.

And here's the man himself, holding the keys to heaven. Funny, he doesn't look like your typical doorman.

We'd planned to head off to the Vatican Museum for the afternoon, but the lure of a decent meal hijacked us, so we were forced to sit and watch the world go by in Piazza Navona while eating pasta and drinking wine. Shame that.

Piazza Navona stands on the sight of an old stadium, you know. The shape is still the elongated running-track shape of the classic Roman chariot racing circuit.

Roma! - Sunday

2007-03-23T18:33:00.000Z

Sunday: Blue skies, temperatures in the mid 60's, a whole city to explore. First stop the Colosseum. Well, second stop actually, first stop was a little cafe for a couple of caffe lattes and pastries to fortify ourselves.

Top Picnicsintheharbour Colosseum Tip:

The queues for the Colosseum suck. You have to queue for security, then queue for tickets. OR you can head on down past the Arch of Constantine to the Palatino booking office. The ticket's valid for both and there aren't any queues there. You still have to queue for security, BUT you can just keep left past all the people queuing for tickets and down to the turnstiles.

Once inside, the Colosseum is as impressive as I'd expected it to be.

OK, I know, everyone knows what it looks like, but it's this huge structure that's been there since 72AD. According to the blurb it was still in use for housing and workshops right through to the 19th Century. I'd assumed the missing South side of the outer ring had collapsed gradually through neglect, but it collapsed during an earthquake in 1349.

Next stop, a little light lunch at a pavement cafe just up the Via dei fori imperiali and then on to the Palatine and the Forum. It's breathtaking stuff, but fortunately Wikipedia tells the story, so I don't have to.

I have to make mention of the Basilica di Constantino, though. It contained the law courts of Imperial Rome and enough of it's still standing (with a little help from some high-tech steel supports) to get a real idea of the grandeur of the place.

It's hard to make out the octagonal pattern beneath the arches, but pay attention, we'll be re-visiting tomorrow.

We surprised ourselves by still having the energy to head across to the Pantheon, the most astonishingly complete of Rome's ancient buildings, it seems to me. As far as I can tell, saved by a) being a Christian church for much of its history and b) being located in one of the few areas of Rome that remained populated continuously between the decline of imperial Rome and its renaissance in the, well, in the renaissance.

That was it for us, we managed to stagger exhausted to the Metro for a quick snooze before heading off out for dinner with Andrea and Grazia. Andrea is one of Missy's Sabre colleagues and Grazia is his beautiful wife of 30(?) years. We had a great time, eating at Ristorante il Ciak across the Tiber in Trastavere. It's one of those gems of a restaurant that you'd never find in a million years if you didn't have a local guide. A wonderful, unpretentious local eating place specialising in meat. Lots of it!

Roma! - Saturday.

2007-03-22T10:32:00.000Z

My birthday present from Missy this year was a long weekend in Rome, and very good it was too. Four days in the eternal City was well worth the effort. We headed off early (taxi at 5am!) on Saturday and Returned on Tuesday evening.

Nothing much to report about the trip out. We were ridiculously early for the flight. At 5:30am on a Saturday morning, Heathrow is not the most crowded place, so check in and security took all of ten minutes. We even had to wait 20 minutes for the coffee shops to begin to open. The flight was on time and uneventful, we were out of the airport by noon, took the 12:05 train into the central station, pausing only to make a wake-up call to James who was very sheepish to find we were already in Rome when he was still snoozing in bed.

Sooo, at the hotel by 1pm, loads of time for lunch and sightseeing! Erm no. We were so tired we fell asleep until 5pm!

At the Lonely Planet Guide's suggestion we headed up to Piazza del Popolo for the evening - we were blissfully unaware that the Italy vs Wales Rugby game was being played at the nearby Stadio Flaminio. After a very pleasant meal at Ristorante Edy, we were greeted by lots of Welsh supporters drowning their sorrows after their unexpected defeat. Plenty of Hymns and Arias going on outside the bars. I even got a cuddle from a (male) Red-shirted Wales fan. Very surreal!

Well so much for that.

2007-03-22T10:23:00.000Z

Moonshine's still got a dirty bottom. The trip to the Sealift on March 3rd/4th didn't happen in the end.

The tides were always going to be a problem in that we were going to be getting back to Chichester either on the ebb tide or right on low water. Not much fun, but we could have hung around for a while until the conditions were better.

Unfortunately, to make matters worse, from mid week, a big depression was forecast to come in from the Atlantic. The forecast winds were therefore F6-F7 and South to South East. This is exactly what you don't want trying to get into the harbour on an ebbing spring tide. It didn't take much thought to realise that we were onto a loser and so I cancelled.

Come Sunday and I was so glad that I did. The storm was a real belter. The wind speed at the bar beacon was touching F10 at times and the rain was torrential. We were at home and Moonshine was tucked up in her berth. By far the best place to be.

Had we gone out, we'd have had the wind on our nose all the way to the IOW, and then it turned and we'd have had wind and tide against us all the way back. Mmmm, lovely.

Under Pressure

2007-02-24T18:29:00.000Z

This week Moonshine got her top half fettled. With the weather looking a little better than previously, we invested in the pressure washer pictured down below and sprayed the living daylights out of her.

I foolishly didn't take a "before" picture of the greenery sprouting from the deck and sprayhood. The deck was nasty enough, but the green growth on the sprayhood was beyond mere algae and had started to sprout leaves, so we'd got a real ecosystem evolving on there.

After working out which bits of hose went where on the shiny yellow beastie, I fired it up and watched it cut a swathe through the muck - hugely satisfying.

So she's all nice and shiny now ready to head off next weekend to remove whatever lurks on the bottom half.

Spring Cleaning

2007-02-22T15:58:00.000Z

It looks like Moonshine is at last going to be heading out of Chichester Marina for the first time since the end of August. I've just booked a session on the spiffy Sealift at Cowes to get her bottom cleaned and checked. Peters, the boatyard at the marina, were as ridiculously expensive as ever. They quoted me £300 to get her lifted, scrubbed and re-launched.

That made it a very easy decision to head off to Cowes to get it done for £80, so we'll be heading over there on March 3rd. Yay!

Snow Bunny

2007-02-08T10:06:00.000Z

The landlocked sea-dawg and I have just been to the park so that she can go and frolic in the snow (an unusual occurrence round these parts).

Unusually high levels of creativity in the snowman building today.

Here's the sea-dawg and her small friend Remy. Remy had to go shortly after this because so much snow had stuck to her furry feet she could barely walk!

Green Day

2007-01-28T17:34:00.000Z

We've just got back from checking up on Moonshine after last week's gales, and she seems to be the greenest boat in the marina, there's probably more than twice the muck on her than there was even a couple of weeks ago.

Next weekend is going to be a late-winter cleaning party to try and get her looking a bit better. We're going to watch Derby vs Southampton on Saturday which is just up the road, so we'll stay overnight on the boat and spend Sunday cleaning, scrubbing and spraying to get her looking half way presentable.

On the bright side, it does give me an excuse to buy one of these little beasties....

Still Winter

2007-01-26T11:28:00.000Z

Another huge gap between posts. Moonshine's still sitting in the water, waiting for one of the glorious winter days that I'd pictured in my mind. We'd be all wrapped up against the cold, on sunny crisp days, gliding across the mirrored surface of Chichester Harbour with just seals and wildfowl for company.

What have we had? Freezing fog, torrential rain, weeks and weeks of South Westerly storms battering the whole of the country. Pfah.

Moonshine's not been neglected, though. I've been down there once or twice a month to make sure that she's still there, to check fenders and lines for damage from the high winds and to run the engine for 30 minutes or so to keep the battery charged and get some oil pumped around the nooks and crannies of the engine.

One irritation is that the rather beautiful Malo yacht immediately next to us, put up the biggest cover you've ever seen once they'd done for the season.

As you can see from the picture, with the winter sun low in the sky, poor old Moonshine has barely seen the sun since the end of October. As a result, most of the deck and the sprayhood are now a vivid shade of green! Ah well, another task to be done once the days get a bit longer.

Here's Missy wrapped up against the cold and enjoying a cup of tea and a coconut macaroon (highly recommended). The sun was shining brilliantly, but with the circus marquee next to us, we were in the shade and it was only about 2pm!

Ploughing a new Furrow.

2006-11-19T22:34:00.000Z

In which Mark and Rachel become jovial landlord and landlady of the Plough at Normanton on the Wolds, Nottinghamshire.

It's a lovely country pub which had become a bit sad and neglected recently. They closed it for three days to strip all the tired old stuff out and redecorate it. The beer's good, the food's great and the atmosphere's exceptional, so so far so good.

A reet classy latte....

A few more pictures are here

Happily, the menu does include the BVI-influenced cheesy fries and gravy.

A Considerable Rewind!

2006-11-17T19:19:00.000Z

Another memory of warmer days to brighten up a November evening. This is James aged about 12 sitting on a small boat that we rented for the week on Lefkas. We mainly pottered around to a deserted patch of beach and lazed around or snorkelled, although we were more adventurous one day and headed off to Vathi on the neighbouring island of Meganissi. It's only about five miles, but it felt quite an adventure on such a small boat.

One that got away.

2006-11-07T13:20:00.000Z

This is Apostle, The Contessa 32 that I was seriously thinking about buying in the spring. Initial estimates made it look feasible to buy her in Florida and bring her back over here. She's a lovely boat and sails like a dream, but Mike, her owner, has been too busy to give her the attention she needs and so she needs a lot of work to bring her back to her former glories.

In the end I decided that it would simply cost too much to ship her over and do the work required. Hopefully someone will see the potential soon, cos she's gorgeous.

Ooh, Shiny

2006-11-07T13:08:00.000Z

Well, they turned out nicely.

Four of the bits of wood that I've been sanding and varnishing.

Before:

After:

It almost seems a shame to expose them to all that nasty salt spray and sunshine!

Rewind

2006-10-20T11:35:00.001+01:00

As we hurtle headlong through the cosmos towards winter, here's a picture of Missy relaxing on Kalos at Leverick Bay in the BVI. Taken almost exactly a year ago.

I'm not sure what expression that is, but she's definitely facing in the general direction of the bar at Leverick Bay, so it probably involves thoughts on whether her next drink is going to be a beer or a painkiller.....ooh, or perhaps a bushwhacker. It's tough being a decision maker.

Long Time No Post

2006-10-16T21:10:00.000+01:00

Quiet times for poor old Moonshine for the last six weeks or so. Missy had to go into hospital for an op so she's not been up to all the clambering and bending of life on the boat.

She's coming along nicely now, but it's getting very late in the season, so it may be a squeeze to get a weekend in before the weather gets just too wintery.

We've had two force nine gales in the past couple of weeks, so Moonshine's been treated to some new fenders. Because she was moored on mooring buoys previously, she only had tiny fenders which aren't much good at keeping her off the dock when the wind blows.

Plan A was to take her out of the water for the winter. The marina offers free onshore storage to 12 month berth holders, which sounds a good deal......but there's always a but.

The boatyard who actually carry out the work charge for their services in getting the boat in and out of the water, plus they insist on the mast being stepped and charge for storing it.

"Free" winter storage, therefore costs £600! Somehow that doesn't seem like much of a deal. I'm sure that the money can be put to better use than having her sitting in a car park for four months.

So she's staying in the water for the winter and I'll take her out in March to get her bottom scrubbed and her anodes checked. In the meantime most of her exterior woodwork is sitting in the shed being revarnished. Four coats down, one more to go and then the current batch (most of the big bits) can go back on the boat all shiny and protected against the elements.

Here's me sanding back the piece of teak trim that covers the edge of the hatch cover and doing a good impression of an aged shoemaker or something.

At least the sea-dawg is doing her best to help!

Downhill racing.

2006-08-31T15:10:00.000+01:00

Sunday was pretty exhilarating with the spring tide and the wind going the same way as us. The GPS showed us touching 8 knots on the return to Chichester. Great sailing, with the weather forecast dissuading enough people from coming out to make the Solent pretty quiet. We did see this splendid ship coming up the other way though. (Even if they were cheating by motoring into the wind).

Everything was pretty quiet on board, until we turned north to get into Chichester Harbour and realised that the downwind sailing was hiding just how strong the wind was as we suddenly heeled over. Good job the sea-dawg was at home. She wouldn't have been impressed.

This is a graph of wind speed from the weather station on Chichester Bar Beacon.

See the 30 knot gust at about 14:30? That's what hit us as we were rounding the corner. No wonder we were moving quickly!

Just to round things off nicely, freeflow into the marina began just as we were arriving, so we even missed the usual weekend afternoon queues, yay!

White Horses

2006-08-30T14:24:00.000+01:00

The forecast winds duly turned up on Saturday morning, with 20-25 knots blowing in from the West. The skies looked pleasant though, with plenty of blue sky in between the scudding clouds, so off we set for our latest attempt to actually go somewhere.

We didn't have the most auspicious start - for the second time I had to get an unsuspecting passer-by to hold onto the bow of the boat so we could actually turn her up the fairway. (Moonshine only wants to turn her bow to the right when going backwards. All the berths we've been in so far have involved a left turn to get out. Add a wind from her stern to this and there's no way she's going to turn in the right direction). Once we got into the lock we got a stern telling off because we'd inadvertantly jumped the locking out queue. In the time between me listening to the VHF traffic to and from the marina and actually setting off, they'd started the usual wait-for-your-number-to-be-called routine. Ah well, I apologised profusely and it saved us an hour's queueing, so hey-ho.

Disappointingly not much to report from our intrepid passage to the wilds of Cowes. We had the tide with us all the way, but the wind absolutely on our nose, so we got plenty of tacking practice and plenty of water over the decks. Mark looks like a natural on the helm, though. I'm not 100% sure where we were just here. We don't look at quite the angle that we spent most of the trip.

Just to prove that we actually got some distance from Chichester this time, here's Portsmouth complete with Spinnaker Tower on the left and a Napoleonic fort in the foreground.

We eventually arrived in Cowes at about 5:00, rafting up at East Cowes Marina on the outside of four spiffy 42 foot yachts, and definitely looking like the poor relations. On our return from the pub we were greeted by the owner of Teflon II, who we'd tied up to. He was most put out that the marina had dared to tie up a 27' boat next to his 42' Moody, claiming that we were scraping his sides. (We weren't, I'd checked for two hours before we headed pub-wards and even moved his fenders lower to make sure that we weren't). He should have been pleased that the contrast with Moonshine was making his boat look even flashier than it was.

Racehorses

2006-08-30T14:00:00.001+01:00

A three day weekend with lots of stuff planned, but Missy wasn't feeling well so Plan B had to be put into effect. Missy stayed and home and watched old movies for three days, with Clemmie the sea-dawg hanging up her lifejacket for the weekend to keep her company. Paul down to the boat with old mate Mark with some serious wind forecast for the weekend.

We were civilised on Saturday and got booted and suited for a day at Goodwood races. Here's a picture of the people there. I didn't bother with any pictures of horses, because all the ones that I put money on came in some hours after the rest of the field. All, that is, except the one which was leading all the way round until a couple of feet from the finish line. At which point the horse that Mark had backed got itself half a nostril's length in front. Hmmph.

Still, it was all in all a good day, despite Missy's absence.

Fair winds

2006-08-07T15:31:00.000+01:00

Sunday was a lovely day for sailing. Up at 8am, walked the dawg and got a newspaper, cooked bacon rolls and coffee, tidied the boat and snook out of the marina towards the end of free flow so the tide was with us. (About the first time we've managed that trick - we've spent a lot of time going the wrong way so far!)

To be honest, we didn't do much, but it was a very nice day to be on the water not doing much.

Mark seemed to like it, anyway.

How about this for a fine, upstanding crew?

So all in all a very pleasant weekend. We didn't make the Isle of Wight this time, but there's always next time!

There are a few more pictures here. (Sailing, plus a few others.)

In which Missy finally enjoys a day on the water.

2006-08-07T14:14:00.000+01:00

There has been a conspicuous lack of on-the-water pics and stuff over the past few weeks, because we haven't been anywhere. We're being very cautious when there's just the two of us and the wind's been slightly too strong to venture out.

This weekend, however, we had reinforcements in the shape of publican-to-be Mark. The plan was to head off to Cowes on Saturday for our first proper sail. Unfortunately nose to tail traffic on the M3 meant that Mark didn't arrive until 2pm, so we missed our slot in the lock (even after the massive two hour wait for 30 boats to get through!) Fortunately, Mark arrived just in time for them to call us to let us know that we'd made our way back to the top of the queue

We didn't fancy risking getting into Cowes as darkness was falling, so it was a motor up the harbour and then a sail sorting run for an hour or so before sailing back.

With a bit of tweaking, Moonshine actually sails rather nicely. It looks rather splendid all goosewinged out. If there are any proper sailors reading, Mark did manage to get the kinks out of the main eventually.

Even the sea-dawg seemed to enjoy it.

Saturday evening was very pleasant. The queues to get back into Chichester Marina were as long as those trying to get out, so it was getting late when we finally got tied up. Fortunately, we were the last-but-one group to order food before the exhausted kitchen staff at the Crown & Anchor at Dell Quay put up the shutters for the night. They'll be praying for rainy, miserable weather over there before the summer's out.

We'd walked to the pub but, after a few pints, the return journey wasn't looking like much fun. Unbelievably, the landlord offered us a lift home when we asked him if he knew if any local taxis would take us and the sea-dawg. What a nice man!

Fat bloke berates dog

2006-08-07T13:56:00.000+01:00

This one's apropos of nothing at all, but I'd say it's time for that bloke to go on a diet.

Not the run of the mill stroll

2006-07-24T13:37:00.000+01:00

There I was, yelling at Clem to stay out of the mud while we were on our way from the Marina to Dell Quay for a quick half or six, when these came over the horizon....

Scared the bejayzus out of us.

Turns out they were doing a private display for a wedding party. Some wedding!

They were still doing their stuff as we arrived at the Crown and Anchor. This is their penultimate fly-past.

Nifty capture of them passing the setting sun, eh? Very artistic, I thought.

As a comparison, here's Clemmie's Earobatics on a windy evening.

All on a mobile phone of course, so not the greatest quality.

I'd actually got the phone out to take a picture of these, because we'd been wondering what kind of crop it was in the field.

Polite Pavla

2006-07-21T21:20:00.000+01:00

Pavla's normally such a nice girl. I guess we can blame the hot evening and lack of sleep, rather than the several Fosters for this.....

All Stations, All Stations.....

2006-07-06T22:03:00.000+01:00

Phew - legal. I finally did the VHF radio course at the weekend, so I can now use the VHF on the boat almost legally. (I can't actually licence the radio itself until I get my certificate). I can now look forward to happy days requesting radio checks from Solent Coastguard on Channel 16 like everyone else. Hurrah.

Positano pics

2006-07-06T21:54:00.000+01:00

A few more Positano pics are here on fotopic.net. Not very good, but they're from my phone. The digi camera batteries died after two hours on the first morning and I'd forgotten a) spare batteries b) the charger.

A question: How come my phone can take pictures for days on end, while also managing to work out where we are in the world, make phone calls and access the internet, while my Fuji camera lasts for about three pictures before expiring while being expected to do nothing but capture images?

Pompeii

2006-07-06T21:35:00.000+01:00

Saturday was Pompeii, a hell on earth of scalding heat and choking ash. It must have been pretty bad in 79AD when Vesuvius erupted too.

A late-June day with the thermometer up in the 90's and not a cloud in the sky is probably not the best time to go and visit Pompeii. The preservation of a first century city is incredible, and it's a wonderful, wonderful place, but it's a hard slog in the sunshine. The numerous Pompeii dogs have the right idea, find a shady corner under a tree and wait until the sun goes down.

The Picnics in the Harbour recommendation is to go in September when it's probably easier to appreciate the insite into life almost 2000 years ago that the city provides.

OK, philistines that we are, the high spot of today was dinner at Ristorante Max back in Positano.

We ate in the garden, the surroundings were lovely, the service attentive, the local wine chilled and delicious, and the fish soup like this.

Positano - Friday

2006-07-06T21:19:00.000+01:00

23rd June 2006

Not much to report about Friday. A late start, a meander down towards the beach, only interrupted by a stop for caffe and pizze in the lovely garden of the nearest restaurant and a little light exploration of the town. Shopping heaven if you like lace and shiny stuff on your clothes.

We eventually found ourselves down on the beach where we spent the afternoon people-watching. The bay is obviously a popular stopping off spot for super yachts, so it's a great place to try and play spot the celeb. Our only hit for the weekend was Peter Weller (Robocop, 24) who was getting married on the Sunday, ah well.

Positano - Thursday

2006-07-06T20:44:00.000+01:00

22nd June 2006

A weekend away from Chichester Harbour and Moonshine and down to Positano on the Amalfi Coast in Italy, for a few days at La Tavolozza, a B&B owned and run by four generations of belle signore. The B&B is amiably and capably run by Celeste and the view from the balcony looks something like this:

We flew out on the BA 6:30pm flight which got us into Naples at around 10:00pm. This meant that, by the time we'd picked up the little blue Micra from Avis, we were heading southwards at close to midnight. Not ideal normally, but it did mean that the decrepit autostrada and the hair-raising Amalfi Coast road was pretty empty. It also meant that Missy and her mom couldn't see that we were driving along a narrow and winding road perched over a several hundred foot drop to the Tyrrhenian Sea most of the time.

The road is an amazing feat of engineering, being blasted out of solid rock on seemingly vertical cliff faces, with more hairpin bends than seem feasible. It's quite exciting when the car's heading one way while the headlights are still illuminating large amounts of nothingness in a completely different direction.

We finally arrived in Positano at just after midnight. Since there's only one road in Positano (it winds downhill and then winds back up again) it wasn't difficult to find La Tavolozza. We dumped the bags, parked the car in a local parking garage (cost nearly as much as the rental itself - ouch) and were extremely pleased to find that we were 50 metres from a bar that was still open and still had some food left. After the journey, a cold beer and a toasted ham and cheese sandwich were like nectar and ambrosia.

Big church, little church

2006-06-20T12:21:00.000+01:00

Sunday dawned bright and clear. I know about the dawn part of that, because for the third Sunday morning running, I got to see the sunrise. What a considerate dawg Clementine is. For some reason she's been deciding that, when on the boat, sunrise is potty time. It looks like this. It's very pretty. It's very tiring. If she does it one more time, she's sleeping in the car.

I took Missy and her mum into Chichester later in the morning so that they could go to a service at the Cathedral. It's very beautiful. They didn't pick a great day for oratory though. The sermon was by the cathedral treasurer who, although undoubtedly is a fine upstanding man, did rather focus on the minutiae of church finances. Still, the view's nice.

After lunch (crab sandwiches at Dell Quay), we headed down to Bosham to see the saxon church (and eat ice creams). The church contains stones from a Roman basilica that stood on the site and is one of the few saxon churches in the country, with a continuous history of some 1600 years. Pretty impressive.

Landlubbers

2006-06-20T11:23:00.000+01:00

Another weekend on the boat, but this time we were just like proper marina-dwellers and didn't venture from the pontoon. Missy's mum is with us for the first leg of her summer tour and she gets very prone to motion sickness, so bobbing on a small boat wasn't ever going to be on the agenda!

It did give us chance to explore some of the countryside around the harbour on another beautiful weekend. We liked it - the sea dawg would like to see some nice cool, dank weather, though.

After an initial attempt to connect a breather line to the diesel tank (I abandoned the struggle with chafed knuckles after about 30 minutes. I can see why it was left off) we headed across the fields for a walk to Itchenor, it's about three miles each way and has the advantage of having the Ship at the end of it. There's not much point in a walk without a pub somewhere along the way, after all.

I didn't get too many complaints about the length of the walk in the heat, but I think that says more for the forbearance of Missy and her mum than my judgement. They did both sleep for quite a long time after we got back, though.

Second Sunday.

2006-06-12T11:55:00.000+01:00

Sunday free-flow at the marina started at 10:30 so, with no lock to negotiate, we didn't have much of an excuse not to bite the bullet and try our first two-handed sail with Moonshine.

So it was on with the sea-dawg's lifejacket, plenty of scratching of heads about what order to slip the mooring lines, and off into the not-so wild blue for a brief jaunt.

With a southerly breeze and our lack of experience we motored up the channel rather than getting the sails up. Heading into the wind was more pleasant for Clementine, who isn't enjoying the current hot weather at all, poor thing.

We headed out to East Head and the throng of anchored boats gathered there, before working out that with the tide starting to ebb quite quickly, if we headed out over the bar as originally planned we were going to be out for hours. (maximum ebb over the bar six knots, maximum hull speed of Jaguar 27 6.2 knots or thereabouts) We thought it better to turn around and try our first attempt at actually sailing in the shelter of the harbour, so a quick spin around and just the genoa up, and we were hurtling along on a reach at all of 2.5 knots. Hmmm, mainsail? Yay, 3.5 knots. First observation from someone who is only used to 37' and larger charter boats - isn't it easy to get the mainsail up on a 27' boat?

We had a lovely, if too brief, sail back towards the marina, with everything becoming altogether more peaceful without a two-cylinder diesel rattling our fillings. With a fairly light breeze we saw almost six knots over the water, which bodes well for future travels.

We locked back in (not quite the M25-like queues of last Sunday) without too many dramas, filled her with diesel (and found that a breather pipe has been left off the fuel tank after her refit, so we found out that a small amount of diesel makes a very large mess in water. something to be fixed next weekend) and got back onto the pontoon with a big sigh of relief.

Hey, we now know that we can sail two-handed :-)

Two-timing

2006-06-12T11:23:00.001+01:00

Second time on the boat. Second wedding anniversary. Just the two of us this time. Second post on here.

It was a jaded pair this time, too. Friends round for cocktails and Missy's determination to perfect the mambo #5 margerita (tequila, lime, sangria, midori, cointreau and heavens knows what else) didn't make for an early Saturday morning start.

We eventually arrived at the boat at around 3:30pm, with the temperature around 30deg C, and England making hard work of beating Paraguay 1-0 in Frankfurt. With the tide at rock bottom and just the two of us we didn't feel brave enough to take an afternoon jaunt around Chichester Harbour, so we did what most of the marina-dwellers there seem to do - we went to the bar for a couple of beers. Well we needed to book a taxi for later and where else is guaranteed to have taxi firm numbers?

Our celebratory anniversary dinner was booked at Purchases in Chichester for 8:45. Very nice it was too. A warm summer evening, dinner in the walled garden with a fountain burbling in the centre, G&T's, good food, a pleasant bottle of Pouilly Fusee (and of course excellent company) , then back to the boat for a nightcap in the cockpit watching the stars and satellites overhead as the sky gradually faded to black. Life can get pretty good sometimes.

First Post

2006-06-05T21:23:00.000+01:00

Last week we bit the bullet and bought this. Her name is Moonshine and she's a 1972 Jaguar 27. We've seen a lot of tatty boats over the winter, but Moonshine has just had a comprehensive re-fit, with a new engine, new standing rigging and new interior upholstery, so she's looking rather smart. (Although perhaps not the custard-yellow anti-slip paint - that may have to go sooner rather than later).

We've just spent our first weekend on her and, after spending lots of cash in the chandlery up the road to buy some safety gear, we ventured out into Chichester Harbour on Sunday afternoon. Busy, isn't it?

Highlights of our learning curve were the summer beginning as we arrived, getting out of the dock and back in without damaging anything, and managing to lock in and out without drama.

Lowlights (minor ones) touching the bottom twice on the way out of the navigation channel (When the sign says 2m depth in the channel, that doesn't seem to be strictly true!) and once out in the main channel (Oops. We live and learn).

Clementine the dawg seemed to acclimatise to life as a sea-dawg quickly and looks very smart in her new red lifejacket.

So, onwards and upwards. We're keeping our fingers crossed for a summer of fair winds, cold beers and picnics in the harbour.