6th Oct 2010 - Sailing

Quite a weird day today.

I woke up at bout 20mins past 4 this morning. Couldn't get back to sleep so just read a book.

Later in the morning I decided that the weather was looking excellent for sailing. I didn't find out that the pond was out until I got down to the boat. It would've been a bit of tricky launch round the corner on the West slipway with the amount of weed. I was worried that the front of the landrover might slip sideways and end up on the wrong side of the pole.

Luckily Mr L. needed to use the tractor to recover a powerboat and he kindly agreed to launch mine, but only if I was quick. I was a little too quick.

The wind was a little stronger than I was used to and it took a little while to get onto a mooring buoy to set up ready for sailing. After initially setting up I set off.

Unfortunately the weather was windier than I had thought and I needed to get back onto another buoy to get some waterproofs on. Doing this single handed was quite a challenge today for some reason.

Round two was a lot better and I decided to head out in to The Sound. The weather was quite choppy but the sailing was excellent. The weather was from the SouthWest so I headed towards Cawsand. As I hadn't done it in anger yet, I got into some clear space
to practise putting a reef in single handed. It went swimmingly and I learnt something else.

The next part of the plan was to go out of the Western entrance and head back in the Eastern side. First I had to avoid getting run over by the large grey boat exiting as well. I couldn't make it out on the tack I was on so had to head back West. This seemed to upset the escort boats and I got a little visit from the RIB guys.

After avoiding the frigate I managed to get out.

The sail across the outside of the breakwater was fantastic.

I came a little unstuck in the gybe back into The Sound. The main sheet swiped across my face taking my hat and glasses. Bugger.

This wasn't something I had planned on. Sailing blind. I had to call Long Room on ch14 to ask them if anything was coming out. Yup. Another grey ship to avoid. Not easy with my atrocious eyesight. Generalities are all I could deal with. Keeping it to the East I headed towards Mountbatten breakwater. I brought the gear down in Jennycliffe bay to avoid any hassles in amongst the trots.