It's been an odd couple of days, which have stood in stark contrast to each other. That's April in the UK for you, I suppose, but it's incredible how swiftly and drastically one's feelings about an enterprise (namely sailing off into the unknown) can alter with the weather.
We began our Epic Journey Into The Wilds on Monday afternoon. It was a highly promising day for us to make a beginning, with hazy sun and barely any wind. 'Barely any wind' isn't exactly known for its utility to sailors, of course, but we were starting slow and travelling only four miles to a nearby anchorage, and had no particular intention of getting the sails up at all. This may sound under-ambitious for any sort of trip on a sailing yacht, but our main aim was simply to spend a night at anchor successfully; real sail testing comes later.
We spent the morning making last minute preparations and saying a few goodbyes to various well-wishers. Finally, when the tide was at its highest, we untied our lines for the first time since last October and motored off. Like most humans, I tend to feel edgy and anxious immediately before leaving on any sort of trip, and this feeling is only exacerbated by the knowledge of leaving a place of comfort and safety for uncertainty and the unknown. It was therefore with some surprise that I felt a rush of exhilaration as we motored carefully along the little channel between lines of yachts on mooring buoys. We were off!
And, before long, we were stopping again, as we reached East Head, a beautiful spit of sand on the edge of Chichester Harbour. We'd anchored here in our previous boat five years ago, so it made for a reassuringly familiar first stop, as well as a delightfully pretty one.
Although it was our first time using the anchor on this boat, it all went very smoothly, except for the fact that we realised we'd forgotten to mark the anchor chain, meaning we had no idea how much we were laying out. Never mind! Peter guesstimated, and he can't have been too far off, as we neither dragged (meaning, for non-boaty types, that the anchor lost its hold and allowed us to drift) nor hit anything else.
The cats, who had been hiding while the engine was on, cautiously emerged and, for the first time, were allowed into the cockpit to have a look around. While wary in the extreme to start off with, they were keen enough to explore before long, and were soon peering over the edge of the back deck and climbing onto the coach roof. I spent the next hour or so trying to watch them both at once, as I had very little faith that they could be trusted not to fall in.
Feeling rather pleased with our day's adventure, such that it was, we settled down for our first night at anchor, only occasionally becoming sufficiently paranoid to get up and check we hadn't gone anywhere.
The next morning could not have been more of a contrast. The world, so bright and cheerful the day before, was grey and depressing, with the promise of rain all day. The wind, while still light, was blowing in the opposite direction to the tide, resulting in a disproportionate level of chop. Not that we were unduly troubled by this, in our boat not far off the size of a county, but there's something so much more soothing about flat water in an anchorage. We had planned on a 23 mile sail to an anchorage on the Isle of Wight, another past haunt of ours, but we weren't enthusiastic. With next to no solar power being made under the drab skies, we had to be careful with power; no hot water for now, and as little heating as we could get away with. We huddled under blankets and listened to the rain, with the sense that this cruising lark wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
Did we fancy spending perhaps four hours sailing in the rain? No, no we did not. But nor did we especially fancy spending the day anchored in the rain feeling chilly. So we compromised and made for a marina in Portsmouth instead, with the promise of free, unlimited electric heating and very hot showers to spur us on.
In fact, sailing in the rain wasn't nearly as miserable as I'd expected. With five layers of clothing, including a hat and two hoods, I was, if not toasty warm, then at least not unbearably cold, and we were beginning to discover the merits of a very large boat. Where once we'd have considered five knots to be a good speed, now we were easily making seven, with the engines at low revs and only a foresail out. As the wind (still pretty gentle) changed direction to become more favourable, we were moving at more like eight.
In what seemed, miraculously, like not very long at all, we were reaching the entrance to Portsmouth harbour. Here was where our only real trouble came. It was our first time using the foresail, and we hadn't quite twigged just how heavy a sail can be when it's big enough for a fifty foot boat. Accustomed to our previous boat, Peter tried to furl the sail by hand, and was alarmed to discover it just wasn't possible from the cockpit, even in these light winds. To make matters worse, the line that was controlling the sail somehow managed to come undone and promptly attacked him as he wrestled to get the sail under control and away. Meanwhile, we were heading slowly into the path of a very large ferry coming out of Portsmouth, and if I wanted to avoid Peter getting battered by the sail again I needed to continue in the same direction, straight into the wind and straight into the ship's path.
For a couple of minutes, things were definitely dicey, but in the nick of time (and before the ferry started blasting its horn at us), Peter got the errant line tied on again and the sail furled away. I pointed us back into the small boats' channel with no little relief, and a few minutes later we were pulling into the marina. We stuck the heating on the very second we could, and hung our dripping clothing around the boat to dry off in the sudden swell of heat.
It hadn't been much fun, but we were warm, and dry, and the marina showers looked fabulous. Any other concerns could wait.
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