Hamble to Studland Bay

It was another lovely sunny day. Just a bit chilly thanks to the wind which had picked up a bit. The plan was to depart about mid-day, then head to the nice anchorage at Studland Bay (just outside Poole harbour) for the night. This would make the trip to Guernsey a little shorter on the following day.

Somehow, leaving the Solent area always feels good, especially in the summer. It was pretty busy with all the weekend sailors (yes, we used to be in that group) who seem to need the entire width of the Hamble entrance to themselves. We looked forward to getting out between the forts at Hurst, and into quieter waters.

Sure enough, they were. Here is Hurst, the fort on the mainland side of the western entrance to the Solent:

And the view aft as we left the familiar Solent waters again:

The "milk run" down to Studland was unremarkable, apart from the usual dodging of pot markers and anchored fishing boats off Christchurch Ledge that is.

Studland was pretty deserted by the time we made it. Old Harry (the limestone rock pillar) looked good in the sun, as did his wife (the neighbouring lump of rock) and the anchorage was very civilised until a couple of idiot Poole based day-boaters decided to return home at stupid speeds through the anchorage area.

A chilled evening:

Of course, we needed an early departure to Guernsey so the alarm had to be set. Naturally, the phone based anchor alarm that we complained about last year when anchored up in Scotland worked perfectly. Until we went to bed of course and then it woke us up with false warnings every 30 mins or so. Nice. Will rely on the proper Furuno kit in future unless we have guests on board. The requirement for us to have an open cabin door to hear the alarm would just be too scary for them.

Firing up the genset for the first time since it got treated to a new exhaust elbow (the preventative maintenance job) showed it only making 2 volts. Hum. Luckily it was just a breaker on the genset that had been knocked into the "off" position by the MDS man who fitted the elbow for us. Now it churns out 240v and 52 amps quite happily again.

The wind turned easterly overnight of course - the one direction where you get little shelter in Studland. As it was a nice gentle F3 to F4 that wasn't an issue though - only small waves had built by morning (well, 4.15 am is very early morning in our view) when the alarm went.....