Bembridge and Cricket – 25th – 28th June
28th June
This was going to be a very complicated weekend. We had booked in January to come across to Bembridge for the music festival at Duver Marina, this was followed by a further booking in April for the England v Sri Lanka cricket at The Ageas Bowl – Southampton. Sadly the diaries were not coordinated at the time of booking, hence we were in the position of sailing to Bembridge on Isle of Wight on a Friday, catching taxi/ferry/taxi back to Southampton on the Saturday morning with a reversal of the trip in the evening to rejoin the boat in time for the music festival. A logistic undertaking of some magnitude. It got slightly easier as a result of the music being cancelled due to the CV-19 measures but nevertheless it did cause some amusement in the marina! For once we did manage to get the sails up – we seem to have had a season of no wind or very full on wind. Timing into Bembridge is tricky due to the height of the drying bar. Hence the last 90 mins was a bit of a motor as we were on a falling tide – something I had neglected to tell Gillian (another failure of communications on my part – not great for someone who has been in the Royal Signals!). But we made it in time – the last boat to arrive. We were allocated an extremely narrow space to get Purrfect Tale into with both the neighbour of the boat next door looking extremely anxious as well as the staff on the pontoon beginning to lose faith in what appeared to be a cavalier skipper. But the secret weapon was the bow thruster which at the last minute averted catastrophe – but just! Wine was opened by the bottle and the BBQ put on!
Saturday 26th June – Cricket
Not too frantic a start although the taxi driver was clearly a frustrated Formula 1 driver around the backroads of the Island. Gillian was trying to work out how she could get the seat belt on as we took corners at something in excess of what appeared to be a safe speed! The trip on the ferry was longer than expected as there was a backlog docking into Southampton. What should have taken an hour ended up taking nearly 2 hours – but we had a very patient driver waiting for us at the dockside. The crowd at the cricket was limited but still around 6,000 and it felt good to be back at a sporting occasion with music, food, and great cricket. A win for England!
Sunday 27th June – Day of Rest
This was the only day we had rain ……. and wind! The intention was to undertake a walk around some of the Island but the weather was not quite right. Instead the dinghy was hoisted from the bowels of the locker, pumped up and launched. It was a solo effort, Gillian had decided that this was indeed a day of rest and if Mike wanted to play with his toys he was welcome to!
It should have been a relaxing trip around harbour but a combination of weed on the propeller of the electric motor and a strong incoming tide added a degree of excitement. However I did find a real purpose for dragging out the dinghy which was collection of lunch from the best crab and lobster restaurant on the Island – absolutely delightful, especially when combined with a bottle of Chenin Blanc. We did take a walk in the afternoon across the causeway and ended up in a sailing club where Jim Davidson was having lunch. Jim was an extremely popular stand-up comedian and a huge supported of the Armed Forces until his style of comedy fell out of favour. It was nice to see him taking time to chat with everyone in the Club, especially the older members who did have good memories of him.
Monday 28th June
Most of Monday morning was spent tidying up the boat to save time when we got back. It was a very warm day with absolutely no wind at all. Sadly a motor all of the way. But it did give us an opportunity to have a relaxing lunch afloat with Purrfect Tale steering herself on auto-pilot. We did have to sop the engine shortly after leaving to clear weed out of the water filter – again. I was not keen on having to call Sea-Start out twice in a month!
Purrfect Tale 