Eastoke excursion..

..another Friday excursion, and it would definitely appear that autumn has arrived in the UK..  after weeks and weeks of 30 degree sunny days (which I loved) and light winds (not so keen), where I hadn't had to reef since last season, the last two trips have both been under reefs, in fact for this trip I used the reefs I put in last time - glad I hadn't taken them out, saved time..

Just under 3 hours on the water then, and a sunny start that clouded over by the hour, and cool..  three layers by the end of the trip, but to be fair the last layer was only right at the end, and only because rain was threatening... 😀

A most unusual wind direction for these parts, WNW and gusting meant a fast trip down the ditch under genoa and motor..  main up outside Northney, and then a broad'ish reach all the way to the bottom of the harbour in, errr..  occasionally boisterous, conditions..  Cambermet is showing F4 gusting 5 (which I've logged) but the conditions were actually more changeable than that, as the wind was up and down quite a lot but only for short periods of time..

A cracking trip then, topped off only by this coming over as I almost reached the bottom of the harbour..  been a long time since I've seen her (this is the two seat'er Spitfire from Goodwood), or more importantly, heard her..  cracking...

Traveled down past HISC, past the lifeboat station, before finally gybing at Eastoke, wished fellow club boat "Shahin" a good journey as they went past (they were on their way to a club gathering at Yarmouth this weekend) and grabbed this excellent shot over my shoulder..  Bembridge in the distance, Eastoke point in the foreground..

WNW is not without some disadvantages of course, and most unusually, to get back from the bottom of the harbour you have to beat up harbour..  feels weird but there you are..  but what a sail, top end four and more all the way back and backing and veering occasionally, so I had to put in a swift tack to make Marker...

...just shy of the bottom of the Emsworth channel Terror came past and I got this - sums up the day to a "T"..  big clouds, big skies, and breeze...  she was absolutely motoring...  love this picture..

...with this direction of wind the chance of a trip up the Emsworth channel was on the cards, but as you can see in the last picture the clouds were closing in, the wind was building (and there are a lot of boats up that channel..  a target rich environment indeed) but we were also getting the occasional spot of rain, so a decision was taken to drop the laundry and head for the mooring.. sods law of course, the sun came out once I was back on the mooring...  never mind, quite possibly one of the best mooring pick ups I've ever done put a smile on my face!

....and that little trip takes me through the 100 mile barrier for this season.. 😏

Log:

Distance: 10.79   (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind: WNW; F4 gusting F5
Sail Plan: Reefed main; reefed genoa.
Speed: 4.5 / 3.2 (max/avg)