Thursday 23rd November: departed Dover 0620 hours for Brighton. Good sail for 3 hours, wind southerly 4-5, then increased 6-7, heading us plus rain showers. Arrived off Brighton in the dark, what a job to pick out the leading lights against all the lights along Brighton sea front! Entering Brighton Marina in pitch black is no joke –we had to use a searchlight to locate the channel buoys (one of which was missing altogether) and the visitor’s pontoon. It was by now extremely windy and pouring with rain, so, although by now our stores were very thin on the ground we managed to rustle up dinner on board
Friday 24th November (14 days since departing Medemblik): forecast west backing south 4-5. Departed Brighton 0600 hours. Very comfortable trip (including some sun) to Portsmouth, sailing most of the way. As we passed through the Loo Channel into the Solent the Coastguard put out a new gale warning, southwest 8-9. We arrived at our berth in Camper and Nicholson Marina at 1430 hours: no sooner had we moored up and sorted things out it started to rain again and wind increased. It was good to be home.
Trip 267 miles Engine hours 65.77 hours
I did wonder if Rosemary would be put off sailing after this trip especially as she had wanted to wait for better weather before setting off, but no, she continues to enjoy our trips – well, most of the time.
