Looking forward to getting out on the water, and as an experienced sailor if anyone needs crew or assistance happy to help out. I've sailed for 40 years done a few Transatlantics and Yachtmaster Offshore.

Simon

Ellie is 13 and is doing quite well in gaining her sailing feet - we are now quite confident in having her on the wheel (though we do not stray too far from the cockpit!)

We really like being in Lymington. The town is lovely for the occasions when we have Aragorn booked but the weather is not up to a decent sail.

Getting into Bembridge at HW is a doddle once you have located the Tide Gauge next to St Helen's Fort and the entrance to the buoyed channel; some of the twists and turns are a bit squeaky, but it's fine in good visibility.

Coming out 2 1/2 hours later is not such a straightforward propositon; Reeds suggests that the harbour is accessible from HW +/-3hrs, but I think that probably only applies to surfboards! The marked channel - whilst only 25 yds or so wide - is very uneven, and after running aground next to a green marker buoy, we found that the "deep" water was not in the centre of the channel, but hard up against the red cans (which was odd, because there were mini-breakers there which I thought indicated shallows).

We motored out at tickover, with the depth sounder showing 0.0 for more than 10 minutes; once past the final pair of channel markers, head out towards a conspicuous orange/red buoy on about 010M, before making the turn westwards towards No Man's Land Fort. From the fort, steer 305M to keep clear of Ryde and this will take you in more or less a straight line past Sturbridge (N) Cardinal , another (S) Cardinal some way off to the S and then straight on to E Bramble Cardinal before finally aligning you perfectly with the big chimney at the west end of Calshot, neatly taking you straight down the North Channel and onto the Calshot N Cardinal . An absolute doddle.

Duver Marina costs £7.50 for a short-stay visitors' mooring on the walk-ashore pontoon and, if you can't be fluffed to walk the mile along the sea wall to get to the main Marina, the water taxi costs £1.50 a head. This sounds like a lot (NB not compared to the Folly Launch in Cowes it isn't!) but when you realise just that little bit too late that all your water is disappearing down the tidal plughole, it helps. A bit. If' you're quick. Or desperate.

Brading Haven Yacht Club (next to the "old" Marina) welcomes visitors in its bar and serves a damned fine lunch menu, but service is very very slow. This food is clearly not microwaved and tastes all the better for it.

After "The Great Escape" over the bar we had a great time sailing in fantastic weather, with the wind picking up to SW 11kts on the way home, which allowed us to sail pretty much all of the way from Ryde straight up to Warsash without tacking once.

Bembridge is a fun day out, but I won't be rushing back; it hasn't got the charm of Bucklers Hard or Newtown Creek, and once you're there the only other place to stop off at is Chichester-Langstone, which probably merits a visit all of its own anyhow.

Building on my earlier overnight excursions to Swanage, this week we decided to push the envelope a little further and go round the corner to Lulworth. This posed a new challenge in the form of St Aldhelm's Head (aka St Albans Head), which has a well-known but poorly documented race, especially on the ebb tide, and there were mutterings about how the frisky Tomcat of naive enthusiasm was finally about to have its surprise appointment with the blunt scalpel of maritime reality ....

Portland Coastguard, The Cruising Association and Google all failed to produce any real information on the inshore passage, over and above the meagre entry in the Reeds Almanac; I think Richard Pierpoint was winding me up when he commented that he had no experience of yachting in that area, and had only sailed around there on a tea-tray. Or a Laser, or something.....

Anyhow, the trip took 2 days, leaving Port Hamble at high water around 13.00 on Thursday 28th August; although the spring ebb was ripping along, the wind was right on the nose at around 17kts (very different from what it said on the tin!) and we were tacking all the way down to Hurst; we managed to shoot out past the fort just before 16.00.

Trying to cut the corner just W of the Shingles E Cardinal saw us down to less than 1m on the depth sounder, which wasn't really all that clever, so we tacked close to the shoreline for a mile towards Christchurch - no more than 100 yds off shore, but still 11m under the keel. The long leg over to Swanage was fairly uneventful, though we needed to put the engine on once the wind died, and we moored up in Swanage just after 19.00. 14nm in 3 hours burned some diesel, but wasn't bashing too hard due to the slackish tide.

Swanage Sailing Club http://www.swanagesailingclub.org.uk /are very friendly - Greg Vaughn (07860 298233) kindly arranged a mooring for a token £10 per night and the Club's galley serves decent hot food all day. Swanage itself is charming, but you need a dinghy - mooring alongside the pier is fine if there is no commercial traffic, but you really need a fender board against the wooden piles. Mooring on a SSC buoy in around 4 metres puts you about 400 yds offshore and, yes, my little Suzuki 2-stroke let me down and I ended up developing biceps the size of melons rowing in and out for the obligatory Fish & Chips.

[Subsequent attempts to get the plug changed on the outboard the following morning proved futile, as the nearest mechanic/chandlery is in Poole; however, I did manage to strike up a conversation over a cup of coffee with members of the Angling Club adjacent to the Lifeboat Station; the people really are friendly down here, and nobody even pinched the dinghy while we were ashore ]

Day 2 after more rowing and a morning ashore, we slipped the mooring around 1230, with very little wind but a cracking ebb tide setting W across Peveril Point; the overfalls here were really lumpy, and we needed to go well offshore - far past the Red can - before turning south and then west around the corner. (N 50 deg 36.5' W 1 deg 55'W, then N50 deg 35' W 1 deg 56'). We made 8 kts over the measured mile running west of Anvil Point and were soon coming up on the St Aldhelm's Race - initially as smooth as a very smooth thing.....

but soon we joined 3 or 4 other yachts bobbing like corks as we the entered the breakers... eeek!

Actually - and ok, this was in zero wind - the confused water was no worse than you would encounter in an everyday F5 off Calshot, and the overfalls off Peveril Point closer to Swanage were much bigger. I would imagine it might look ever-so-slightly different in a brisk SW wind-against-tide situation.

Anyhow, once past the headland, the strong W tide suddenly stopped (there is a significant eddy current setting SE from Chapman's Pool) and we were becalmed again, so motorsailed for the last hour across Worbarrow Bay and into Lulworth. We arrived around 15.00 and mooring was a doddle - on a buoy alongside "Aurora", a Fairview Bavaria also from Port Hamble - and at this point the crew and I dived in for a welcome dip in about 4 metres, about 60 metres off of the NE shore.

After the traditional ice cream ashore we set off again just after 17.00, had a quick peek over at Durdle Door, and then hitched a ride on the East-bound flood tide, reaching St Aldhelms around 18.00 (flat as a pancake on the flood), "beating" furiously into almost 3kts of wind with the engine on again! Note that the Fl.10s light at Anvil Point is really quirky, and we timed it at anything from 6 - 12s from different angles...

Again, on the flood, Peveril Point was totally calm and we moored up on the buoy in Swanage just as it was getting dark around 20.00. The two girls rowed ashore whilst I got some kip, and after a pizza in town they were back on board around 10.00pm.

By the second HW around 0100 the dead-calm wind had picked up to a useful SE F3-4, gusting up to around 17kts across the decks, so after a quick chat with Portland Coastguard on Ch73 I set off across Poole Bay with the girls asleep in the cabin and nothing but the stars for company. Blissful! Sailing at night I tend to err on the side of caution and stick a reef in from the outset, and on this occasion it paid off as the wind picked up further during the early hours; intially I had a couple of kts of foul tide and progress was slow, but after clearing the entrance to Poole Harbour I fell off the wind a little and closed in towards Bournemouth, as the tide is much gentler inside the bay. Technically, the direct route to the North Passage around the Shingles is on about 069M, but I was tacking about a bit and finally reached North Head Fl(3)G at slack water around 0500. A busy 4 hours to cover only 14 odd nautical miles, but a really enjoyable sailing experience.

By the time I reached Hurst Narrows the flood had really kicked in and I was making 8+ knots past the Sconce cardinal, following which it was "straight down the middle" (in the red sector on the back bearing to Hurst) on about 070M and I rounded Calshot at 0730, getting onto the pontoon a sniff after 0800.

Cleaned up, breakfast buffet at the Banana restaurant - what a lovely end to a day which for most people had barely started, but which for me by then was already 9 hours old!

If you have read this far, you may wonder why I have written this; the simple message is that, in a couple of days of "Sail-time", it really is possible to have a cracking little excursion way beyond the confines of the Solent, exploring new challenges, visiting some wonderful anchorages (NB Chapmans Pool looks like it merits a visit!) and capturing some truly magical moments as you come home into the sunrise without a soul in sight. And for those of you who have never marvelled at the phosphorescent plankton that light up your wake at night like a sparkler - get out into Christchurch Bay and be prepared to have your breath taken away..

I am here because I handle the website for Richard and Sue.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any technical issues with this forum or website.  Hopefully you will find it easy to find your way around.  Members are able to post new topics or respond to other entries but only when logged in.  Guests will be able to see posts but not able to post or send e-mails to other users.

My apologies if you have come from the old Forum and posts you made there are not available here.  We decided to start again as this is incorporated in the website and is much more likely to be used.  I hope that this will be a great resource for Solent Nautical College Members and I am keen that it is accessible as possible to encourage people to join and use it.  A forum is only as good as the members and how they use it.

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Over to you now.  Hope you will enjoy!!

Kind Regards

Keith