We, myself and Ross who was with me when I first took
Bluey to Ryde, got down there on Wednesday and left Ryde on the
evening tide... in lovely sunshine. We headed over to Hardway
where we had arranged to meet Steve Birch who owns an Albin Vega
and to spend the night on the sailing club pontoon. So far so
good!! But the weather forecast for Thursday was not good and
we ended up having a mornings sail in Portsmouth harbour before
it became unbearable. It did, however, prove that the sprayhood
does it's job. So we spent the rest of Thursday back at Hardway
pontoon drinking and chatting. Then having collapsed in a heap
I was woken at half midnight by the F8's banging us against the
pontoon.... so I had to get up and rig more lines.... whilst
my crew stayed warm!!! I got very little more sleep that night
and we spent Friday recovering and again hiding from the weather
until by mid afternoon it had dropped off a bit.
So we then nipped down to Haslar with a view to having
one night somewhere descent. We rafted up.... myself against
some posh 39ft jobby. 2 hours later the skipper of said boat
moaned at me for rafting against him.... claimed there was a
space on the pontoon further up!!!!! I pointed out that there
wasn't which seemed to rub him even more up the wrong way!!!!
Then, and this is really wierd... when I got up saturday morning
with a view to getting a shower, the skipper of the 39ft was a
sleep in his sleeping bag ON deck and against his shrouds....
thus preventing me from getting off the boat.
However, Saturday was a nice day. But of course it
was a nice day as we were due home in the evening!!! So we had
a sail and came back in on the High tide.
So as I say it was a little disapointing. Having said that I have
no plans to take her out of the water for the winter, so I may
well fit in some crisp winter sailing. After all it was November
5th when I took her over last year and that was a lovely sail.
