Trip Update - 5th July 2008

Nutmeg of Shoreham
Ollie Holden
Sat 5 Jul 2008 19:44

Position 50:52.43N 01:24.06W

 

Since the last blog entry from the Folly, we motored up to Cowes and berthed at the Yacht Haven.  We noticed that the Commodores Cup was on and I remembered that Ben Clothier was sailing in it, so he came over for a chat – great to see Ben and he even appeared to be sailing well!

 

Ben - top sailor, international man of mystery, and Ollie's Best Man

 

Whilst we were in Cowes, a mysterious thing happened.  I left the pushchair complete with buggy board and 3 fleeces on the pontoon next to the boat.  An hour later it had gone!  Despite it being windy, I had parked it where it couldn’t feasibly blow into the water, but there we have it, it had gone.  I spent a while sheepishly trawling up and down the pontoon with the kedge anchor to see if I could find it, but to no avail.  Even Ben, the king of rubbish jokes, hadn’t played a practical joke on us, so we were stumped as to what had happened.  We still don’t know.  It may have been a blessing in disguise as it was not easy to stow a McLaren pushchair on a 38 ft boat, and it has given Sarah an excuse to trawl the shops…

 

After a couple of beers with Ben and Amy Smith (Richie’s sister) in the Pier View in the evening, we set off the next day on a stonking reach across to Southampton Water, with a SE 18-20kts and full main & genoa.  Nutmeg was in her element!  We bore off round Calshot and goosewinged down to Hythe Marina, where we locked in and took a berth in this quiet marina.  We had come to Hythe to see my Nanny, who is 89 and lives nearby.

 

Pushing water across the Solent at 7kts

 

The next day, we met up with Nanny, Gilly (my aunt), Nick (my step-uncle) and Mum, who had unexpectedly caught the train/ferry over to meet us.  We managed to get Nanny down to Nutmeg and although she couldn’t get on board, we had tea & cakes with her on the pontoon next to the boat.

 

Nick, Mum, Ollie, Nanny, Gilly 

 

We had hoped to meet up with Sam Parker for a Friday afternoon beer (as he works here) but he gave a lame excuse about being in Leicester – I think he is going soft.