Bored with Brighton

As my sister remarked on FaceBook, if a man is bored with Brighton then he's bored with life. Well that may be true but we were fed up with sitting on pontoon 24-11 and as the tides were right and the wind was light and from the southwest, we decided to make a quick passage to Newhaven. 6 nautical miles due East.


It had been rainy and overcast all day but brightened up at about 3pm and we set sail at 4pm. Once again, the Galley Slave did all the manoeuvering. The Skipper is now just about learning to cope with this and still surprised that she hasn't hit anything.


As it wasn't too far, we couldn't be bothered to bring the fenders in or hoist the mainsail. Very sloppy sailing:

and didn't result in us going particularly quickly:

But it did give the Skipper the chance to take some photos. Hopefully the Perv Protection Squad weren't about watching him taking telephoto shots of this location:

Galley Slave looked happy, 

but there again she always is when she has a firm grasp on something.

Finally arrived in Newhaven at about 6:30pm. The visitors pontoon was full up, so we tried to pull into a vacant pontoon just opposite. Unfortunately, the Skipper, who was driving by this stage, failed to keep an eye on the depth sounder and we grounded as we went in. So we backed out and twiddled our thumbs a bit while deciding what to do. Then the nice lady and gentleman from the marina office came and guided us to another berth that we would fit in. We didn't. So we tried another one, we didn't fit in that either. Finally on the fourth attempt we managed to moor up with about 2 feet of water to spare.


It was a nice berth as well. Fantastic views of a scrap heap:

It just gets better. Then the ferry turned up:

Back to Brighton tomorrow, I think.

Monday to Thursday

Not much happened really. Work, beer and food. Had a good time and are starting to settle into life on board now. Feels a bit weird when we go back on land. Everything is still moving about. But that might have something to do with the fact that most time on land is spent in a pub.

Sunday was a day off

So we went shopping in Brighton.


The galley slave was excited, because this meant we could buy coffee from a coffee shop rather than her having to make it:

And the Skipper was excited because he got to buy a new guitar to keep on the boat:

Accepting errors

I thought we might get a better quality of sign-writing in Brighton, but alas I was wrong.

Bedtime in Brighton

Moving on again

So, after a week, it was a time to move on again.


Brighton was our next stop, an easy 4 hour sail along the coast. Once again our intrepid part time crew decided to come and join us. Her trip down was not uneventful. She borrowed my car and in her own words "a bit dropped off the engine on the A23". The power steering failed, but somehow the little waif of a girl managed to navigate to Brighton Marina car park. She then found the slowest bus in the world to Eastbourne and at that stage gave up on cheap transport and hailed a taxi to Sovereign Harbour.


Beer O'Clock ensued, followed by eat as much as you like chinese. Then back to the boat to further diminish the skipper's hoard of cheap French wine. I think we got to bed at about 1am (all in separate beds, I hasten to add).


7am and the alarm goes off. Time for the tide to take us to Brighton.


The wind apparently was having a lie-in, so we pretty much drifted to Beachy Head, but this gave the Galley Slave ample time to rustle up some bacon, egg & cheese butties. These were polished of just in time to admire the view at Beachy Head. Fortunately, everyone on land seemed quite happy today.

Skipper & crew enjoyed a post-prandial coffee:

and once again we goose-winged our way to Brighthelmstone:

Claire learned how to control a Genoa and how to steer:

and finally we reached Brighton and a welcoming shag (or is it a cormorant?).

Rang the RAC and a nice man came and took Claire and the car home. So alls well that ends well.

Eastbourne Marina

is not a bad place to be:

even if their signwriters have a few problems.

My lovely dinner

We love cooking, it's just that we're not very good at it. It tasted OK though.

Our new home for the week

And here we are in Eastbourne:

Saturday 15th May 2010 - Passage towards Eastbourne/Dieppe

Couldn't work out from the weather forecast whether to go to Dieppe or Eastbourne. 


We chose Eastbourne. The weather chose Dieppe.


So we said farewell to Boulogne,

and the fishermen

and set out across the channel.


Initially there was no wind, so we had to motor for about 3 hours. With little to do we played the sailor's favourite game "I Spy":

Funnily enough, "S" was the favoured letter.


Eventually we saw something else, but that too began with "S". (This one's for the OB81 boy's - they know who they are!).

The wind gradually strengthened through the day eventually reaching Force 5 and due to it being dead on the nose for Eastbourne, we motored the last 3 hours. The whole trip took 12 hours. It was an enjoyable day.


Today was a bit of a special day as the Skipper allowed the Galley Slave to do all the difficult bits. She drove us out of our berth in Boulogne, did all the navigation, drove us into the lock in Eastbourne and berthed us up in the Marina. Surprisingly, (a) we arrived at the right marina and (b) the boat is all in one piece. 


Then, the delights of the Eastbourne shower blocks. 

Wednesday through Friday

Work only interrupted by a really bad WiFi connection and trips to the local supermarket.


Booze cruises are OK when you have a transit van, but when you have to do it by foot with a rucsac it becomes a whole new ball game.


Boulogne Marina, our home for the week:

Tuesday's main event...

We bought a heater.


Now we're snug in our Bug.

That Monday morning back to work feeling...

Whilst this doesn't look like the international HQ of an IT Consultancy firm, it is!

A sad farewell. 09-05-2010

So, it's Sunday and Claire had to rush off to hit things for the Lord.


Finally, the monstrosity on the port bow was going to be taken away. Once more, we would be able to facilitate a starboard tack.

Having not ridden a bike for a long time, she initially seemed a little sceptical. 

But she soon got the hang of it.

So we bade Claire a sad farewell.

08-05-2010 Passage towards Boulogne

Didn't want to go too far on the first day out and the wind was forecast from the NE, so Boulogne was the perfect destination.


Got the borrowed bike strapped on to the guardrail and we slipped our moorings at 12:30. The first notable thing to happen was lunch (always an important affair). It would appear that our newest crew member quite likes lunch.

I appreciate that in these photos it looks like we only gave her 2 tomatoes for lunch. Fear not, other prospective crew members, this photo was taken quite late on in the lunch break.


Then we had to work out where we were:

 This went quite well. Claire established that we were somewhere near Varne light ship. Which was in fact very much the case:

Apart from spotting gert big container ships, there was nothing much to do, so the Skipper had a little sit down:

 The galley slave was allowed up for a couple of minutes from tea/coffee making duties:

The skipper was still finding it a little incongruous having a push bike strapped to the guardrail. So much so that he took a photo of it.

So much fun was being had, we hardly noticed the time passing and soon as a soon thing (well, 17:30 BST), we had arrived in Boulogne:

 The marina was the emptiest we have ever seen it, so mooring up was no problem. All the usual boaty things needed to be done and then the galley slave allowed us to tuck into the ice cold beer that had been saying "Hi" to me from the fridge all day.


A quick freshen up and the the ritual visit to "La Croisière". Not one of Boulogne's finest restaurants, but a friendly welcome and a guaranteed "on the house" large glass of Calvados at the end of the meal. All very Gallic.


Then off to bed for a well earned kip.


What adventures can tomorrow bring?

Preparations are in their final phase

Bugsy is back in the water, with a few bits mended.

New rigging (as yet untensioned, which may cause us some problems).

New propeller shaft and shaft seal (PSS for those in the know), which should alleviate the jacuzzi effect in the bilges.

Lovely new paintwork and polished hull. 

Tomorrow (Friday) we're going down to Dover and then on Saturday (hopefully) setting sail for Boulogne. 

Our house sitter (the lovely Claire) is coming down to Dover with us so that she can drive the car back (at £15 a day, we felt that 3 months parking was going to be a bit excessive). So we are taking her with us to Boulogne to give her a taste of life on the ocean wave.

Problem is that the ferry from Boulogne to Dover doesn't take foot passengers, so we've had to borrow a bicycle from a friend in Dover which we'll somehow strap to Bugsy on the way over and then she can ride it back.

Being as Claire is a member of the PCC and a multi-talented instrumentalist in the church music group, she has agreed to lead communal singing of "for those in peril on the sea" should things get a bit dodgy in the Dover Straits.

Let the adventure begin!