Why would anyone leave lovely Lymington to go to Gosport??

That is a question we have asked ourselves many times. The answer is a mix of being sociable, being mean and being thrown out. 

Since Anne and Izzy were coming to stay, getting to Gosport is a little easier for them. As it is a Boatfolk marina, we can stay for free up to 30 nights in a year. As the bank holiday weekend was approaching and everyone in the Solent seems to want to be in Lymington, the Dan Bran pontoon there was already fully booked so we had to leave.

The well trodden route is a simple one that we've done many times before when we were based in the Solent area:

Departing Lymington at low or just after low water to take the tide with us to Portsmouth was not going to work though so we had to content ourselves with a hour of help then the rest of the time pushing against the strengthening tide. So be it, at least it was dry and for the start of the trip, sunny! Yes, sunny.

Near Cowes we started to spot the usual collection of unusual sailing craft. Here is one example:

The observant captain spotted when the crew had the kettle on for tea:

Busy alternator - 133 amps output. Remember that it is a 24v one too so lots of power being generated.

Approaching Portsmouth, we saw the new aircraft carrier Prince of Wales heading in to the harbour. We also heard the QHM folks (Queens harbour master, they control the port) on the radio tell a yacht that the entrance was closed to all small craft for another 90 minutes. That was not good news.

The Furuno gear tries to show AIS targets with an appropriate marker on the screen to help you distinguish between a little yacht and a huge container ship needing lots of clearance. Well, it certainly made the carrier look impressive compared to the many tugs and support craft around her:

One big ship indeed. Luckily for us, we arrived just after the harbour opened again and could head in pretty much straight away. Then the fun started. When we left Haslar just under 2 weeks ago, the crew mentioned our planned return. "That will be fine" said the girl, we don't take bookings though. Funny, they did for our first visit. She said to ring a couple of days beforehand to double check. The crew duly called and was told it was OK but to call the next day for more berthing info. That call confirmed a spot on E hammerhead again but that we might need a night in the visitor area until the berth was clear. So, on arrival we called them on the radio. 

Clearly none of the phone arrangements meant anything at all to the guy we spoke to. Even after explaining all that we were told "wait and I will see if I can find you a berth". Oh dear. Then it was "go onto E hammerhead but we might have to move you from there". Very feeble processes indeed. Pity as everyone is very friendly but they need to get themselves into gear with bookings as arriving at a Solent marina "on spec" is pretty pointless in the boating season. All way too busy. We do love Scotland!

No matter, we were in a spot to avoid the bank holiday madness and it is free berthing bar the electricity.  Astern of us is the Alex Thomson racing yacht which had to pull out of the Vendee globe race thanks to a rudder failure. Have a look at Alex Thomson racing website. The yacht is pretty ugly to be honest. Here is the stern view:

and after the crew had turned her around, we got the strange bow view:

The two "foil things" that you can see arching out of the hull were being fitted and it was a tricky job. The technical guy doing this told us that the two foils cost a cool £0.5 million to have moulded in carbon fibre. We worked out how many John Deere main engines we could buy for that amount - not that we ever expect to wear ours out anyway. Sailing fast seems rather expensive these days.

A shopping trip into Morrisons at Gosport allowed more observation of the locals. One rather seedy character came out of the store, lit up a pre-prepared rollup cigarette and made the area around him smell pretty grim (smoke, not his personal aroma). About half way through it, he nipped the burning end off, removed his cap and put the rest of the cigarette under his hat for later on. Such a quality place to be.

Life improved when Anne and Izzy came for a break. Izzy took up her usual spot and commandeered a cushion:

We commandeered some gin. Well, rather a lot actually.

A walk around the pebbly beach at Titchfield was a happy day for the dog and us with a brief coffee and bad stuff stop at Lee-on-the-Solent on the way back to fortify the humans. For Izzy, the treat of some cooked pork when we got back was gently enjoyed:

A long walk into Southsea, a truly excellent lunch at The Florence Arms (where other diners fell in love with Izzy) and some more beach time tired out all of the crew nicely in glorious sunny weather (finally, spring had sprung):

Having got out of the cooking habit, Sunday lunch was in Trinity's, the bistro place in the corner of Haslar marina car park. Very good it was too but with a bit of real Gosport thrown in when the two waitresses were chatting and one had to tell the other that she had shaved her legs that morning in an otherwise quiet bar area. Anne duly headed home but left the barky furry thing on board so our lives changed into one of subservience instantly.

Maintenance News:

Something  good this time - the replacement follow up lever on the flybridge seems to have done the trick as the autopilot behaved perfectly on the trip. It was also being fed from the Furuno satellite compass not the dedicated fluxgate compass. The changes to the sat compass setup by Paul the Maricom man seem to have sorted out the strange signals it sent to the autopilot beforehand. Apparently during the battery swap in 2018 a parameter showing which orientation the control box was mounted in was not reset properly. We forgave Paul. No idea why but we did.