While most sensible people tucked themselves up for inside to let a weekend of highly changeable weather pass them by in the warm and dry, we instead decided to go for a highly sociable…if very wet at times…jaunt from Hamble to Yarmouth.
The weekend started on Friday evening with some very moody and still evening skies, followed for a slightly misty trip up the Hamble for dinner at the Jolly Sailor pub.
It was the first time we’ve ever arrived at the pub by water, so it was rather fun trying to pick our way through all of the mid-river moorings to the pub’s pontoon that looked so easily “just over there”!
While we were all busy nattering and enjoying the good food, the tide came right up, so it was no longer a walk back down the ramp to the pontoon and boat…but actually a walk up!
The mist and the pub’s lights certainly made for a very atmospheric feel…with slight suggestions of ginger bread houses!
Saturday morning started with a quick investigation as to why our boat speed wasn’t working. The reason was slightly unexpected – after pulling the impellor out to clean it up I found that the bilge was now housing a small aquarium for tiny shrimp! More shrimp were then persuaded out of crevices in the impellor before being returned to the river…turns out shrimp were enough to stop the speed impellor from turning!
With all systems working again we headed out for some rather fun sailing in the approximate direction of Yarmouth. The wind held really well throughout, even if it wasn’t quite in our preferred direction, though the rest of the weather felt it had to add more variability.
5 minutes really could change the atmosphere on deck considerably!
Despite the yo-yo-ing weather it was a thoroughly enjoyable, fast, sail. We managed to hit approximately 6.5 kts through the water (10 kts over the ground at that point), upwind…which may be a record for us (if not, it must be very close).
After an even more sociable evening both on land and on a friend’s boat we had a much less exciting,but equally wet motor back. It turned into a day where the wind hadn’t read any of the weather forecasts and entirely forgot to get out of bed.
To compensate, we at least got to see multiple rainbows in between the heavy showers, and found some rather adorable, if shy, ruddy turnstone’s chilling out on one of the main channel lateral marks:
