Lymington to Poole - escaping the madness of the Solent

Picking the right time to escape the total boating madness known as the Solent was easy - head off just before high water to take the tide all the way to Poole. Much as we love Lymington the whole area was just so busy with staycationers that the thought of moving became more and more appealing. However, every boater we talked to was "heading west" so we guess the west country will be equally mad. Not having been into Poole for a while, it was tempting but our draft limits anchoring opportunities there. However, the Poole quay boat haven had a spot for us and as it is a TransEurope place at a sensible cost too. Leaving Lymington, Alex and Gisele on Lady Grey (did we mention that she is a HUGE Nordhavn 55) acted as photo boat:

and the crew didn't have time to recover all the fenders so you get this scruffy boat picture to enjoy:

For some unknown reason Marinetraffic really got confused about our track and final resting place:

We have no idea what the three lines are all about and the AIS was working all the way to Poole quay so it seems that the shore stations had trouble picking up our signals properly. The visible kink in the route was to avoid a couple of fishing boats who were hanging around Christchurch ledge.

Entering Poole harbour we had to push a strengthening outgoing stream as we passed Brownsea Island:

which was the site of the first camp that kicked off the Scouts movement. As we were in one of the narrowest areas of the harbour, with traffic heading out to sea as well, this passenger vessel decided to overtake and try to squeeze us towards the shallows. Very unprofessional behaviour - he was way too close considering the tidal stream but clearly could not wait a minute or so to have more sea room:

Sadly typical of many so called professional skippers around the harbour who seem to view all pleasure boats as idiots who get in their way. To be fair, many are but a silly close overtake in a very constrained area because we were going a knot slower than him was unforgiveable.

We had fun backing into our berth, watched by everybody and particularly the guy moored alongside us who had lots of shiny white GRP on his flimsy looking Princess 52 to worry about. We managed to avoid him and later on chatted at length, clearly forgiven for disturbing his afternoon. Happily berthed, the crew enjoyed the afternoon sun on the flybridge:

 

and a most enjoyable few days of relative peace and quiet followed. Until this guy pitched up that is:

It sounded like it looked and was crewed by exactly what you would expect. Luckily they only had a short stay.

We amused ourselves with some food shopping, walks, haircut for the crew (the Captain wishes he needed such things!) and general sloth - oh and the odd ice-cream.