Victualling Weekend

Saturday 18th March... Bit of a change to the normal getting here routine today because we arranged a meet-up with Claire, Matt,& Charlie at Lakeside Country Park in Eastleigh. 

It was great to be together again, the first time since Christmas. We all took a walk around the lakes, except Charlie who did a super job of cycling the whole way! ...

We walked along the miniature steam railway, and did the obligatory wave to every train that passed us by. We thought we had entered the land of the giants when the gang found a rather large wooden chair, and could not resist climbing up for a photo... even Matt with his arm in a sling!

By this time we were all feeling peckish and so Dean treated us to lunch in the station cafe. Then he and Charlie snook off into the station gift shop and emerged with a whistle. Mum and dad not too pleased about that, naughty grandad.

After saying our goodbyes we carried on to Gosport. It must have been less than an hour after arriving at Thesee when Dean had the floorboards up. He's pondering over his electrical connections for the new alternator. He must have spent the best part of two hours talking to himself, whilst Linda repaired her very worn out sailing gloves AGAIN... she reckons she hasn't had her money's worth out of them yet. 

This weekend is the last one before we leave Royal Clarence and take Thesee back up the river to Wicor Marine. At Wicor Thesee lives on a river pontoon, so anything we bring has to be transported in the dinghy. And so this afternoon, we decided to stock up on supplies for the summer whilst we are in the marina. Here's a photo of what we bought from the local supermarket today. A whole trolley full...

12 Water, 6 Lemonade, 3 Tropical, 3 Blackcurrant, 6 Milk, 6 Wine, 36 Coke, 18 Loo rolls, 4 Kitchen rolls.....that should keep us going for a couple of months. Maybe we should have bought more wine Dean ??

Sunday 19^th March… Wow, what a windy time we had today sailing just a few miles across to Cowes. We knew the conditions would be quite challenging, but it turned out to be more extreme than we had anticipated. Since Christmas we’ve had an empty berth next to us in Royal Clarence, so we’ve had loads of room for manoevering in and out. But this weekend a new boat has turned up and it’s a biggie, 50 foot like Thesee, meaning our manoevering space has been vastly reduced. With this in mind we were a bit apprehensive about leaving without causing any harm to them or us infact. Well we need not have worried, because once again Dean did a most spectalular job. He used a technique called springing off and he actually made it look easy! We departed with our heads held high.

Once out into the Solent we felt the full force of the wind as we once again tacked into a South Westerly Force 6/7. It took us four hours to reach Cowes (usually it’s a two hour journey), and as it was high tide, we took the Small Boat Channel into the River Medina, arriving at Folly Reach at 3.30pm. It only took two attempts to get secured to the pontoon, amazing in these windy conditions. As per normal after an exhilarating sail, Linda looked like she had been dragged through a hedge backwards. Sorry no photos.

One small repair was required to the staysail's leach adjuster which had become frayed en-route, and this required Linda hoisting Dean up about 12 foot in the bosun's chair. It's all good practise.

It’s evening now and we are comfy, cosy and warm. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.

Monday 20th March... The wind was still strong when we got up, and after a quick debate we decided to stay here until tomorrow. One of the things on the agenda this weekend was to get the tender and outboard out for a first test run of the year. 

Ready and waiting for test run

We went across the river to the Folly Inn and then for a walk up across the fields to the very unusual looking Whippingham Church. 

Well, it's only a small place but what a lot of interesting gravestones we found. First of all we spotted the grave of 'Uffa Fox'. Not a name that springs to my mind, but Dean knew straight away. Turns out Uffa was a boat and ship designer, well known for his eccentric escapades in the sailing fraternity. Famed for conceiving the idea of the Airborne Lifeboat, a lightweight vessel to be carried beneath aeroplanes and dropped by parachute to the survivors of ditched aircraft. 

Then we came across the grave of John Lord with this extremely unusual headstone. John was a noted British flying boat builder and Managing Director at Saunders Roe Ltd. 

But the most interesting of all was the grave of Prince Louis Alexander of Battenberg aka Admiral of the Fleet Louis Alexander Mountbatten aka Prince Philip's grandfather. He married one of Queen Victoria's granddaughters Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, who is also buried here with him. 

After our adventure we went back to Thesee for lunch and a relax whilst the weather passed. Later on we went back to the Folly Inn for dinner, our little weekend treat. 

Looks like a nice sunny day forecast for tomorrow, could be an early start. 

Tuesday 21st March...We departed at 9.30am prompt, making our way along the River Medina past Cowes and out into the Solent.

It was still quite windy with a bit of swell, but definately more comfortable today. Dean unfurled the genoa and within an hour and a half we were passing Gilliker Point.

On entry into Portsmouth we were greeted by the rather large and daunting Pont Aven ferry making a departure.

We were all psyched up for entering the marina and 'squeezing' ourselves into the berth, when we realised that our neighbouring boat had already departed. So once again, we had loads of space to manoevre. This is our last full weekend here. Next visit we move to Wicor for the summer.