Sovereign – Brighton
5th July 2017
Passage Time 4.5 hrs
Distance 24.25
Wind av 11 knot
Gusts. 15.5 knot
Sea State Slight
When we visited Brighton last year, we could not get in at low water due to silting up, so Chris called them the night before we left Sovereign Harbour to confirm all was now ok. Unfortunately, they still have problems despite the dredging and we were advised that we could not enter 2 hours either side of low water. We therefore took their advice and left earlier than planned for the 09:00 lock-out. We thought that we would top up with diesel before we left but when we moored up on the fuel pontoon, we found the pump had a large nozzle that would not fit into our tank. A large fishing boat then blocked the other pump for too long, so we decided, to leave this and top up in the Solent, as we were not desperate.
We locked out and Carole put away all the fenders and lines. The sun was shining and a gentle breeze behind us was pushing us along past Beachy Head. Unfortunately, the wind became quite light so we had to put the engine on so as to make our time into Brighton.
As we approached Brighton, Chris called in to advise our arrival and we were asked to go on the hammerhead on pontoon 13. We checked our depth as we were going in and found that there was more water than expected. We got safely on to our very bouncy outside berth and went to the office.
Brighton is part of the Premier Marina group, but premier it was not. What a contrast to Eastbourne, which was excellent. It took over 20 mins to book in and sort out keys and internet. Once booked in we were told that the boiler had broken down the previous Friday so none of the showers or laundry were available unless we walked to the other facilities some 15 mins walk away.
The berthing for visitors was made difficult as no one seemed to know what was going on. Boats were asked to move several times or the pontoons offered were already full. We were lucky that we arrived early to get the berth we got. Therefore only one night here! Our early arrival, however, meant that Carole got to watch a couple of good tennis matches from Wimbledon.
We decided to eat out tonight near the marina. Chris had been chatting to a nice chap on a boat next to ours and he recommended an American Burger place called Five Guys. Definitely not the cheapest, but if you want a very good quality meat burger and chips with a difference, you should come here. You won’t be disappointed.
We took a slow stroll back to the boat and watched the tennis highlights before heading to bed.
The Seven Sisters