12th June 2016
We set our alarms for 6 am and were ready to leave our pontoon for the lock-out at 7 am. All went to plan and we exited the lock. Carole put all the fenders away before we got out of the channel, then we headed south for about a mile before we set a course of 220⁰ towards Beachy Head. The wind started to pick up as we approached Beachy Head so we put the sails up and switched the engine off. The weather forecast was not looking very good for the afternoon with fog and thunderstorms for the Brighton area. We were making good progress towards Brighton but it was not long before the rain started and the visibility became poor. We soon lost sight of the coast as the mist came in but all was well as we were navigating with our on-board GPS and charts.
When we were about 1 mile off Brighton we called the marina to request a berth for a few nights. The marina confirmed that they had space for us but warned that the marina entrance depth was not enough for our draft (like many places they are experiencing problems with silting} and we would not be able to get in for at least another 2 hours. Chris suggested that we drop anchor off Brighton Pier to wait, but Carole was not happy as the sea state was a bit lively and would most likely result in her losing her breakfast! We therefore decided to carry on sailing westward for about an hour, returning after low water to ensure safe passage into the marina. During this time we found ourselves in the middle of a yacht race. There were about 12 fully crewed yachts with about 5 crew sitting on the windward side of the boats to get the best speed possible. Chris thought he had won the first leg of the race, but Carole said that he was dreaming. Soon we were back outside the marina with the wind now up to about 20knt and as always the sea was developing a 2 metre swell. We managed to get through the breakwater with the lowest water below our keel of 0.4 metre and our depth alarm sounding. However, before we found our allocated berth, our depth gauge was reporting zero, but we tied up very nicely with no further problems. Phew!
Due to a technical error the AIS Data is not available. (Chris did not have the transmit on for the AIS)