Sea Survival Course

Saturday 19th November.... What an exciting weekend we have been looking forward to. Our boat club (BOA - Beneteau Owners Association) have organised a Sea Survival Course which we are attending tomorrow in Southampton. More about that tomorrow then! 

Today was also a very special day, as our friends Sue and Colin had invited us to stay over with them at their home in the New Forest. It was a cold, frosty, but sunny morning and the countryside views on our journey were just magnificent. The sky was clear blue, the trees various shades of rust, and the fields were bright green with white frosty coating. The colours were just so vivid i couldn't help admiring the beauty of it all. 

We stopped off in the New Forest to give Saffy a quick run about

The weather wasn't to last though. At lunchtime we arrived at Sue and Colin's place and spent a really lovely afternoon with them at their home. They made us feel so welcome. By evening time the heavy rain had arrived, but it didn't stop us heading out to the local pub for a tasty meal and bottle of wine. What a fabulous day we had. Thank you so much to our lovely hosts. 

Anyone for pudding?

Sunday 20th November... Up bright and early, and after yummy freshly baked croissants, we headed to Ocean Safety in Southampton for the Sea Survival Course. A morning classroom session ensued and Steve (our instructor, and fellow BOA member) gave a very interesting and informative talk on safety at sea, and prepared us for the pool session where we would be practising boarding a liferaft.

There were eight participants on the course, and we all arrived at Andark Dive Centre and changed into our oilies. Linda was a little apprehensive knowing she would have to jump in at the deep end (and hope her life jacket would duly inflate!). But all was well and we had a really brilliant and so enjoyable two hour session in the pool. 

Dean prepares for his first dip of the day

Thumbs up from Linda, all is going well

Dean's turn to haul himself aboard

Back in the water again, Linda's enjoying this too much!

Knock Knock, help me in please

Now it's time to get out 

Faking waves.....you need a sprayhood Dean

Huddling together for morale and spotability

Waiting our turn to board, make sure you hold on correctly everyone

Swimming backwards is the only way

Now we have to right the overturned liferaft

After all the fun but serious activities, it was time to return to the classroom for the rest of the day's instruction. Everyone said what a fantastic day it had been, and we are extremely grateful to Colin for organising this event, Steve for giving his time and expertise, Steve's family for looking after us all, and to BOA for supporting skills days such as these. 

At 5pm we said goodbye to everyone and drove to Gosport because we are staying on Thésée until Tuesday. An early night in bed as we are feeling worn out after a superb two days. 

Monday 21st September... Time to dry off those waterproofs now! Not an easy task to do on a cold day. We hung them up in the aft heads overnight and left them to drip happily. Now they are airing pride of place in the saloon and we have been dodging around them all day. 

Dean was working on his davit fixture, having crafted a small wooden base for mounting it upon. A bit more tweaking is needed, so more of this next visit. Then he completed the fixing of one of the new removable security grills. 

There is a strong wind warning for tonight....50mph. We have been told that the wind two nights ago reached 70mph and there were a few burst fenders around the marina, but no serious damage done thankfully. It's definately not sailing weather at the moment. 

Tuesday 22nd November.... I don't usually 'blog' on our departure day, but thought this photo taken this morning was worth it. Stormy skies still....

How are we going to top this great weekend? xx

Yarmouth Weekend

Saturday 5th November..... Today we left home even earlier than usual as we had a busy agenda. First stop was at Baseline in Swanwick for screws, then we headed over to Birdham in Chichester to pick up a davit that Dean had purchased on ebay.  We had a quick lunch at the lovely ‘Boat Café’ at Chichester Marina and subsequently made our way to Littlehampton where we had arranged to view a second hand watermaker.  

We didn’t get to Thésée until 5pm and it was getting dark and cold. We were just unloading our bags when we realised that we (ok Linda) had left Saffy’s bed at home. We had taken it home for washing after our last visit, and had forgotten to repack it. Linda is definitely in the dog house! 

It was Bonfire Night and we had hoped to see plenty of fireworks but although we heard quite a few, we didn't get to see much. Thésée has lots of windows but you can't really see much at night unless you go out into the cockpit. After doing this once or twice you soon get fed up.  

One of the reasons for visiting this weekend was because it was opening night at The Victualler. It’s a new bar in the marina and we have been watching the renovation work going on for the last few months. The building itself was the old bakery/granary used by the Navy in the olde days.....arrr pirates. We made the effort to go and have a drink to support 'the local community', and I think we were both pleasantly surprised with its charm.

Sunday 6th November... Brrrr, it's cold. All heaters on this morning to warm us up. There was actually ice outside on the cockpit table cover. We had an hour or two before our planned departure to Yarmouth at noon, and Dean once again did a few jobs including stowing the new davit in the aft cabin for now. 

It's a calm morning here as we await our departure time

Royal Clarence is a Transeurope Marina

The wind forecast was NW force 4/5, becoming force 5/7 with possible gale force 8 later. Great! It's approx 4 hours to Yarmouth so we knew we could make it before the high winds set in. We got going, putting two reefs in the main sail and a full staysail. Average wind speed at 13.00 hours was 20 knots and we made good progress only having to tack twice all the way. We were pleased with our new found AIS boat spotting skills. We had been keeping an eye on an approaching large dredger for a while, the AIS having shown its destination as Cowes, and so giving us plenty of warning to keep well out of its way. It sounds strange, but it's really useful to know where another boat is heading. 

After you pass the headland at Cowes it gets much quieter, with hardly any boats about this afternoon. Linda likes it that way. At one point we were doing 9.2 knots and having made good time we reached Yarmouth Harbour at 15.20pm. On arrival we approached the pontoon. The wind was blowing us on quite hard and somehow Linda decided to throw her roving fender over the side for extra protection, but forgot to hold on to the other end of it! So it just floated off underneath the pontoon. Fortunately Dean and the harbourmaster secured us and Linda was left red-faced. That's two days running she has been in the dog house. 

Monday 7th September..... Things went bump in the night, and bump all night long for that matter. From 2am the swell started rolling into the harbour and slapping against the hull. It wasn't uncomfortable, just annoying but you kind of get used to it and try to sleep as much as you can. After breakfast we took Saffy for a walk, we really like Yarmouth. It's a lovely little village with plenty of green spaces to keep Saffy happy. Here's a selection of snaps we took on our walkabout.....

Best back gate in the land

Quirky chimney pots

Looking out towards the wooden pier

Are they doing the conga?

A pretty address

How's that for a garden?

Fancy rooftops

Fancy signage

We've been in here a few times...

....but not in here yet

They're always closed

Swell still rolling in

Thésée baby

We are here

We had calculated that we needed to depart by 12 noon to allow a good tide to take us eastward. However, it was still blowing hard and we were being pinned onto the pontoon. Dean summoned help from the harbourmaster, who was only too happy to assist. Dean used a technique called 'springing off' which kicked the stern right out and the bow in, this allows you to reverse out if you have boats fore and aft of you. The harbourmaster then towed the bow round into the wind and pointed us in the right direction for leaving. Usually we would use the bow thruster to do this, but it's not always adequate if the wind is too strong and you just end up back on the pontoon. The plan worked perfectly and we set off up the Solent. 

The sea was moderate but Thésée handled it superbly. We opted for the same sail set up as yesterday and we were steaming along, up to 9.8 knots on occasions. I have to say it was very cold and breezy out there, it certainly blew the cobwebs away. We made it back in 3 hours and coming into Portsmouth Harbour we passed the huge Mont St Michel ferry on its way to Ouistreham. 

Wouldn't like to be any closer than this!

Dean getting the fenders ready for our arrival

Lovely weekend again, very cold but at least we didn't get wet xxx