Brighton to Portsmouth harbour

Departing Brighton on another sunny day we pretty much retraced our route:

and spent a lot of time and energy dodging the many pot markers of various sizes and visibility en route. This is certainly not a trip to do at night, or in the fog. Empty plastic milk bottles were in use as were short poles with tiny ragged black flag remnants. One day someone will regulate and enforce the rules against such things. We guess that the current anti-plastic movement will stop plastic milk bottles being produced and hence used as markers before anything legal happens. Wonder what the fishermen will use in future?

The force 5 gusting 6 wind astern of us was starting to pick up a few little waves and the odd yacht heading "upwind" was starting to throw a little spray around:

With a following sea and the stabilisers on, we just made tea and enjoyed the views / sun. The crew got a little unhappy when a most unlikely hitch-hiker joined us off Hayling Island:

Clearly he had taste as he departed before we entered Portsmouth harbour heading for Gosport:

The Spinnaker tower looked impressive in the sun. Fighting the last of the outgoing tide in the narrow entrance to the harbour is always amusing, especially when you follow a yacht that has just enough power on to move forwards and is being thrown from side to side by the eddies. After a gorgeous flybridge trip of around 7 hours we were looking forward to the booked hammerhead of H pontoon in Haslar Marina. Only there were two catamarans on it..... Bit of a trend building here, you phone, you book, you say how fat and deep you are, they say it is all organised then it isn't. At least the Haslar folks handled it well, unlike the Brighton experience. We had a nice reverse into a finger berth with the wind and tide trying to pin us against the pontoon but were determined to do so with no thruster use as we had become the object of much attention cruising up and down waiting for a new berth to be allocated. 32 amp shorepower cheered up the crew no end.

Then it was work time. The doors have signs of corrosion behind the hinges and there are spots on the windows too (well known issue with the Diamond Seaglaze aluminium of a certain vintage). We did some spots last year but now it was time to get serious and remove the aft door:

Cleaning up behind the hinges, chromate coating it, then Awlgrip paint took a couple of days. The hinges and door keep were refitted with Duralac behind them and around the bolts to try and hold off the typical dissimilar metal corrosion that starts around the bolts. Such a fun job but had to be done. We are so happy to have Dutch style doors so we can lift off half at a time. They are amazingly heavy and solid (like most of the things on the boat really) and tested the crew's muscles nicely.