Wednesday 5th June – Studland Bay to Braye Alderney
Start 0500 – Finish 1500. Distance sailed 59nm
We were up at 0430 and departed at 0500 after having made a very sweet cup of tea each before letting go of the buoy. Bit of a tide to push until we were abeam of St Albans Head and then set course of 187 deg for Alderney. Winds were light and it was motoring for the first 4-5hours. Sea was very lumpy and quite unpleasant. Wind was N-NW so not a great deal of help. Gillian got her head down for a couple of hours whilst I stood watch. With an uncomfortable sea and motor plus autohelm doing the work it was time to break out the audio book. Whilst the weather was fair it was still a little chilly. Before we hit the first sea land, we came across 3 line fishing boats about 20 miles out directly in our path. Came as a bit of a surprise to see them – they seemed to be chasing the shoals as every few minutes they would sprint to a new spot – throw lines in and hauled up the fish.
Early morning breakfast was half a pasty each from the Hamble, lunch a cheese and ham bun and an early afternoon snack of the 2nd past we had bought. It was one of those rolling seas where everything is just hard work. We had to make ourselves make teas and coffees to keep rehydrated – it would have been very easy to have drunk very little.
By the time we had hit the shipping lanes the wind had shifted to the W-SW and we were able to at last turn off the engine.
We made good speed over the ground towards the latter stages helped by the tide. I had aimed to arrive at around 1600hrs which was as near slack tide as we were going to get in the entrance but our speed was such that we were an hour earlier. In the end the tide did not prove to be the issue entering Braye but the weekly contained ship that turned up just as we were making our approach. It was clear that I was going to have to be the give way vessel. At least we had something big and unmissable to follow into the harbour.
We picked up the buoy at 2nd attempt and broke open the rose plus an orange squash and of course a couple of packets of crisps before we sorted out the boat. Island Girl (Dex and Julia) had also travelled across but got in around 1hr before us. They too had an uncomfortable crossing – particularly for Julia.
We decided not to cook on board and went to the Le Pesked Restaurant at the Harbour Lights Hotel – about a 10 minute walk from the harbour. A nice evening meal – Lobster Bisque and Scampi and Chips – neither were small portions. We were unable to finish the wine so brought the remainder of the bottle back with us – we must have been tired.
An early night!
Purrfect Tale 