Hunt for the Sun

It was a grey afternoon as we slipped out of Portsmouth – but dry. Newtown Creek was as welcoming as ever. A headsail reach had brought us down on the tide and we were snug on a mooring. An early night. A dawn rise, and we were on our way west to find the sun.

Ideas of the Baltic had been shelved – the weather there as bad as here, but colder.

Sitting on the tide the Needles flashed by. Swanage glowed in the early morning sunshine. It's a long time since I enjoyed the old town of Weymouth, infamous for being the port where the great plague entered the country, but little has changed. The sun was shining, the sky had big patches of blue. Sipping a well earned pint the barmaid told us of torrential rain in Portsmouth, and the floods in Littlehampton. We smiled, and had another pint.

Our second dawn awakening and, as the sun crept over the cliffs of the Jurassic Coast, we motored out across the Olympic race courses, and headed south. It was Luke's first cross-channel. A blustery northerly had us romping across to Cherbourg, where Pete took our lines as we tied -up along side Stormvogel.

Tomorrow we go to Paris.............