Monday 21st August
We had set an alarm for 5.15 am, to give us ample time to get ourselves organised for a 6.00 am departure. As we gently left our berth, Chris had his eye firmly on the depth gauge as our end of the marina was again having problems with silting and had the dredgers in. The depth gauge dropped to around 0.4 metres below the keel, but we were fine and we continued out into Portsmouth Harbour. Carole quickly sorted out the lines and fenders and we were on our way to Brighton with an ETA of around midday.
The dark skies were beginning to lighten as the sun fought to shine through the heavy cloud. But at least it wasn’t raining and the winds were very light. In fact they were too light to sail, although we did try raising the mainsail and cutting the engine back, but our speed dropped to less than 4 knots over the ground, which wasn’t enough, so the engine went back on and the mainsail went away.
The sea state was a bit rocky and rolly as we made our way to Selsey Bill. There were another 3 or 4 boats in the distance and soon we were all converging to go between the buoys Boulder and Street, where the water became very disturbed and bumpy for a good 5-10minutes. As we were going through this area, another boat close by called up on the VHF radio, so Chris called him back, but his call was meant for another boat, who didn’t answer, but they exchanged pleasantries anyway. The boat’s name was Hectic and he was bound for Littlehampton. The wind was still very light – F2-3 only, so the sails would stay away, at least for the time being. Chris had looked to see if we could make Eastbourne but he worked out that it would add another 4 hours on to our passage as the tide would be against us, so we decided that Brighton would be where we berthed tonight. The rest of our journey was uneventful and about a mile outside of Brighton, Carole radioed in to the marina and then proceeded to bring out the fenders and make sure the lines were in place. We had been allocated a berth on Visitors Pontoon 11 and asked to tie up as far back as we could. To our surprise, we even had assistance from one of the marina team to tie up. He was on a mission to get in as many boats as he could along the side-on pontoons, for possible rafting later, as they were still having problems with silting. In fact, they now have their own little dredger called ‘Doris’.
After a bite to eat for lunch, we both had 40 winks (well, it had been an early start out of Gosport). We then had nice hot showers and supper and had just finished eating when we had to give assistance to a yacht wishing to raft up on us for the night. With that excitement over with and the washing up done, we took a short stroll around the marina complex, before returning to the boat for a game of scrabble and an early-ish night. All being well, we would be off to Eastbourne in the morning.