Lymington to Poole

Anne decided that she should reclaim her dog and so arrived (rather delayed) thanks to South Western trains and their inability to make connections work. No matter, she made it and Izzy was delighted to see her.

We headed off from Lymington just as the tide was turning and so enjoyed a fast trip through Hurst castle:

and out of the rather manically busy Solent. A gentle flybridge run across to Poole, dodging pot markers followed. It was a bit breezy and so with the wind over the tide it pulled up lots of short steep waves but nothing to bother the Nordhavn.

You can gauge the strength of the wind from this interior pic of Izzy:

(she is the slightly furrier one) and then this one on the flybridge whilst underway:

Is there a dog in there?

Off Poole harbour were the usual mix of yachts and little speedboats enjoying the Studland Bay anchorage. We had organised a spot in the Poole Quay boat haven and managed to reverse into it with no dramas. The little trip took just over 4 hours and was delightful. Kind of what the cruising life should be really.

Nothing on the boat front to report, it all seemed to work OK. We are still very heavy with fuel from our Guernsey top up which made turning inside the confines of the marina area against the natural prop walk way more interesting.

After paying for a couple of nights berthing (thankfully cheaper due to the Trans Europe card) we decided to stay for a third. When we arranged this with the office, they asked us to move onto a finger berth from our alongside spot. We did, but overhung the finger quite dramatically. The marina staff came to inspect, told us that they had mistaken the length of the boat and that we could go back to our original spot. So, we untied again and wriggled back in to our first berth. Apparently the newish staff member on Sunday had ignored the booking info and picked our old Broom 415 from the database. They had charged us for a 12.5 m boat (we thought it seemed cheap!) and noticed our real size when we moved from the shadow of an enormous ugly Sunseeker that was being commissioned here and onto the finger berth.

After some shopping in town and a walk to Hamworthy Park where Izzy enjoyed the beach rather a lot, we took the bus to Swanage. The bay is still a lovely spot:

The walk to Durlston Castle across the cliffs was warm but worthwhile as they have an excellent restaurant there which fed and watered us well and gave us this view to enjoy from the lunch table:

Quite a spot really:

Fuelled by excellent food and a small(ish) cider, the walk back went much faster although Anne did throw a stick at some folks walking in the other direction. Why? Well, she claimed it was for Izzy to chase and she hadn't seen the people. Good stuff that local cider.

The trip back was a little disrupted thank to a fatal accident on the small "A road" that links Swanage and Corfe Castle. We had to take the bus to Sandbanks, walk a little from there admiring the wildly overpriced houses and trying to spot which one 'Arry Redknapp lived in. The football manager 'Arry of "I didn't fiddle my taxes, I am no good at maths in fact I can't even write out the team sheet" fame, We didn't spot anyone we knew or recognised but saw plenty of elderly cars parked around there - maybe staff have to park on the road not in the ample driveways.