Both ends of the harbour..

Britain is currently "suffering" (though not as extremely as mainland Europe) from something the weather gonks are calling a 'Saharan plume'.. so it was that a number of places in the UK had the highest UK temperatures recorded over the last weekend, Saturday in particular, but as Sunday was cooler, and I couldn't make Saturday anyway, Sunday was the optimal day for a sail..

Club boat Ampotis dressed overall - not sure what the event was but she was looking good.. 😊  

A 1030HT so not exactly perfect, but needs must, a grey start though still quite warm, and an intriguing westerly wind direction - time for a run up the emsowrth Channel to see what's going on, followed by a reach down to HISC if the wind continued to play ball I thought..

Put a few rolls of main round the boom as the wind seemed quite lively, fired up the donk, and off we went..  decided to leave the main down for the first part of the trip up the channel - didn't need it - left the engine on tickover in case I needed to get out of the way in a hurry, and a most pleasant run was had..   end of June though and there are a lot of empty moorings in the channel - time was when it was absolutely packed from May to Spetember but entire strings of mooring buoys could be seen with no pick up's and no tenders waiting return of yachts...  what we did have however, was a huge number of performance dinghies - racing from Emsworth Yacht Club I think..

Emsworth

Got to the pontoon from the Mill Pond sea wall, and dipped and gybed for the end of the channel..  more motor - wind had come round a bit and it was too crowded to get the main up.. 

That went up at the end of the channel, engine off (oh, blessed relief), and I then had a close'ish beat down to the harbour entrance which also saw the return of the sun - glorious..

Harbour entrance - Eastoke buoy and the island

Funny conditions - the wind had dropped but was still a handful in the gusts, but as the gusts were becoming rarer, I stopped and took the reefs out before continuing...   got to just shy of Eastoke and as I could feel the wind shifting northerly, and the tide was beginnign to build, I turned for home and a close hauled beat up to the top of the harbour which enventually resulted in the engine going on in order to motor sail past Marker, and into Sweare Deep and the cut..  cracking day out - I'm finding that the auto pilot is extending my sailing as I no longer need to be on the tiller for the quiet bits!

For reference - halyard runs...

Log:

Distance: 12.54 (cumulative total in the mileage tab at the top)
Wind (Speed; Direction): F4 going F3 going F4 (gusting the same); WNW going WxS
Sail Plan: Reefed/full main; full jib
Speed (Max/average in knots):  5.3 / 3.5