Goodbye to Brixham

They say that patience is a virtue but I know that I am not very patient. However, if you rush to go somewhere in a small boat, when the weather is not ideal, then you may not live to regret it.



The end of April came and went. On the evening of the 15th May we finally saw a potential drop in the high winds that have plagued us for so long. This, we hoped, would enable us to cruise the 85 miles to the Solent. We set off at 7:00 am to catch the tide in the right direction and programed in to the GPS a stop at Weymouth. The weather was not perfect but good enough to keep going. After 20 miles you can't see land in any direction and we had reached the point of no return. It was as close to continue to Wemouth as turn back to Brixham - so we carried on. As we approached Portland Bill we could see a very large ship on our route, but not on the radar. As we got closer we could see that it was a Naval Warship. It did not actually appear on our radar until we were only 4 miles away, by which time we could see it very clearly indeed. I don't know what they paint them with but it makes them look like a small fishing vessel on the radar. We chose to go around it.



The sea had calmed down so we decided to head for the Solent in one hop. Five hours after we left Brixham we were mooring in Lymington; greatly relieved that we had finally managed to travel past Portland Bill without incident. If you have watched the air sea rescue program you will know what I mean.