First Adventures

Van. Tender (-that's the dingy to row back and forth from the boat) Yacht

All provisions and bedding loaded on, and being rowed out.

Everything stowed away, we decided on a spin, . Suddenly there was a lot of black smoke and the  temperature of the engine went off the scale! Oh dear, why did no one tell us to turn on the water cooling inlet?

Damage to impeller after being run dry

After supper,

                             

and sunset

 A scrutiny of all the manuals;

Chief Engineer puts on his overalls and has a look

We are on a "drying mooring", this means that when the tide goes down, as it does twice a day, the boat sits on mud. This doesn't matter much as our boat has two keels, which allow it to settle comfortably and remain straight. But it means that if anyone is on the boat they'll have to wait until the tide returns, six hours later, to get off and go shopping, or to find a replacement part.

Swans on a shingle bed at low tide

We had some breakfast,

Notice tea in a screw top cannister because I forgot to pack mugs!

We gingerly tried the engine after replacing the impeller and felt confident enough to make a new start.

We put some sails up, we sailed to Bosham, Where we grounded in mud. It was sort of on purpose, as we had decided to stay the night there, and if you moor on the Quay, they'll charge about £20 a night. There was a marquee in the sailing club grounds and a party got going about nine o'clock.

Worried that the tide would lift the boat and sweep it into other yachts moored nearby, we set the alarm early. (4.30!) this was far too early actually, and we eventually shifted about 6

Skid marks

Making the most of an early start we "borrowed" an empty mooring buoy for breakfast and listened to the far off sounds of yet another party coming from Cobnor Point. We wondered if it might be coming from Cobnor House, was it a birthday party for teenaged triplets?

We spent the late morning and low tide on another borrowed mooring buoy outside Hayling Yacht Club in the Emsworth Channel. The Harbour Master, (or someone- he was an amenable chap) heard our story of engine trouble and waiting for the tide, without argument. We went for a swim.

The wind picked up a bit, and turned westerly and as the tide was rising we decided to sail up and down the Emsworth Channel. It was now early afternoon and there were more and more boats and craft of all sizes, windsurfers and dingy sailers zipping about like dragonflies, crowds of brightly coloured sails of the sailing school dinghies like flocks of butterflies, yachts big and small, huge engined power boats.... it was getting very  busy; and we were still on a learning curve with the boat and the area. 

Chichester Harbour is very shallow in many places, and although it looks like open water, in reality it might be only a few feet deep, our boat has a draft of 1.4 metres. This means that from the bottom of the keel to the water surface we need at least that to stay afloat. At one point we were making a hash of a tack and drifting onto East Pole Sands, we looked up to see a coast guard on a big RIB chasing after us to offer assistance. We  managed to sort ourselves out without his help, but I then got a bit wary of it and suggested heading back towards Dell Quay.

We sailed sweetly on a run all the way through Itchenor Reach and up past Birdham Pool, saving the engine.

Within sight of the pub at Dell Quay, we ran out of water again, dropped the anchor to wait, and noticed other boats coming in following a designated channel marked by buoys which we had ignored.