Poole to Portsmouth, a great days sailing but a few manoeuvring issues

We had set our alarm for another 5:30 start but with another quick look at the weather and tides we were ready to go for 7am (a lie in),  as we started to get going a small breeze came in and as soon as we started going in reverse the wind caught the bow (front) of the boat and we ended up trying to reverse out of the marina berth after a few twists and turns we managed to get pointed in the right direction and started heading out of Poole Harbour, We were in a line of quite a few yachts heading out, so being a bit lazy I followed a few and they took me out via a different channel to the one we came in on which I think saved us some distance and time,

it was a good sail on from there with a reefed main and a few rolls of the head sail we were going along nicely on a port tack heading passed Brighton, christ church heading for the Hurst or north channel into the solent, now the Hurst channel can be a little rough with the waves on a wring tide thankfully we had timed it right and had a little bit of chop and the boat did plough through one wave getting water nearly to the cockpit lol, but once in the solent it was quite literally plain sailing, sun, good wind so Carl got sun burnt as usual oops.

It wasn’t until we made for the entrance to Portsmouth that we had a couple of problems, carl snapped his sunglasses putting the main sail down, we forgot about the small craft channel and came in the main channel and got told off, then nearly caused mayhem between two Isle of Wight Ferrys, at that point we headed for gosport marina and asked for a berth, we were going along fine and nice and slow we had asked for  a port side berth to make mooring easier, which would have worked perfectly but another yacht was heading out as we turned in!! Evasive maneuvers were needed and without the help of another sadler 34’s (VIVACE) we would have not only damaged our boat but a few others! Once safely tied up a huge sigh of relief was done, after a few very heart felt thanks to Rodger and his wife (VIVACE) we went for a shower and something to eat at the Castle pub where we knew the portions are generous as we ate the before our component crew course in August 2016