Lymington to Swanwick

After arriving in Lymington, with the strengthening wind trying to remove us from the pontoon, it was interesting to see that the only other arrivals were:

a hard as nails FPB and two sail training yachts that had previously competed in round the world races. Yes, this was not a day for the plastic fantastic fast motorboat brigade to be out there.

We enjoyed a few days in Lymington, an excellent in quality and price lunch at the new(ish) High Street Kitchen restaurant, a catch up with Ray and Sara (more food, in the Monkey brewhouse) and then on board with John and Kath who were in the midst of selling their lovely Broom 39. The Toddlers drove over from Hythe for lunch and amazingly the mooring lines held firm despite the storm force 10 gusts we enjoyed.

Tides are always a challenge. We were heading to Swanwick marina on the river Hamble (where we used to have a  permanent berth) and at half-tide it really rips across the pontoons there. Ideally we would arrive at high water, only that was 8:30am....  Typically you are allowed into visitor berths from mid-day so, we called the nice folks there , did the "we are booked in for a week then have a lift out so can we arrive earlier please" thing. Sure enough, it was fine.

Having an alarm clock wake up was not good but we duly got ready around 7am and then headed off. Simple sheltered route in the Solent:

with not much else about. En route the captain was most confused. The tide tables and the navigation PC said that high water was at 8:30 am, but the plotter screens said it was low water then??? The fog of an early morning brain cleared slowly and we realised that for some strange reason the plotter had picked up the current date from the satellite compass, which is suffering for a severe bout of "GPS rollover" disease. That means until it has a firmware update, it will show the right time but the wrong date - it was back in 2003. Swapping the date input to another sensor, all was well. 

Heading towards our old home territory we encountered a raft of pot markers with old plastic milk containers as floats. When will they enforce the existing harbour laws to sort out the cowboy fishermen??? Some had old 5l plastic containers like this one and in comparison were well marked:

Lethal at night though unless you have a FLIR.

Heading up Southampton Water, we encountered the lovely old Shieldhall heading out:

Launched in 1955 she is a proper old steamship and in a preservation trust now. She was a very late build to be steam powered and is, so they say, the largest original steamship still in operation. Her operational life was not terrible glamourous, carrying sewage sludge out to sea - have a  look at Shieldhall website. Lovely to see her under steam again though.

Arriving in Swanwick we were clearly a small Nordhavn. Alex and Gisele on their Nordhavn 55 were two berths away. A brand new 68 called High Fidelity was two berths in the other direction. Yes, we had that little boat syndrome going on until we realised just how much polishing the other two need. Not that we have even started any this year yet thanks to the grim weather so far. Restless, a N43 was also in the marina but in a different area so she didn't help to "big us up" at all. Four Nordhavns in Swanwick - the berthing master remarked on it, we christened the place the "Nordhavn creche". He seemed to prefer the Nordhavns to the massed acres of shiny white Fairline / Princess / Sunseeker craft around us. We certainly prefer our fuel bills.