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.