Portsmouth to Eastbourne still big seas

Well the alarm was set for 4 am as we needed to be leaving Portsmouth as close to 5.15 as possible we got a way at 5.20 so pretty much spot on, we had two days in Portsmouth as we got a little bit muddled with tide and today flow times and ended up 12hrs out oops, so in stead of Sunday it was Monday before we left.

carl was still concerned about the manoeuvring out of the berth after the almost disaster getting in the berth (eternally great full to the crew of S34 vivace) where another yacht was coming out as we turned in,  anyway the wind had dies down a little and we performed a text book reverse out of the berth and with waves good bye from vivace we headed out into Portsmouth Harbour,

I was reminded by Rodger on vivace that there was a passage through the submarine net called the dolphin, I was first told about it on our compotent crew course,  it saved us a long trip out passed horse Sands fort, the sea was still big and rolling waves but we must be getting used to it as we had no worries about the sea state lol, as the wind was directly from the west we had to motor sail with just the head sail up, we made good time so much so I nearly missed the Looe channel that is the safe route round Selsey bill,  luckily I noticed that the depth was going down in time to adjust course to get through, after that it was a straight line course till ramstead wind farm which is still under construction,

It was next to pass beachy head and with the waves as they were it was a bit nerve racking but as usual tiger lily showed us again that for her it was no problem, we then had the shackle on the bottom of the head sail come loose so we had to roll it away and just motor from there but getting the head sail in was a struggle with nothing holding the bottom of the sail, but a course change sorted it out,

we then made our way across Eastbourne bay missing the lobster pots and then try and do our first lock as Eastbourne has two locks, we got the lines ready but it was a little late when Christine shouted fenders!, we had for got to put fenders out a little bit of a hurried scramble and there was fenders on, we locked in with no problems and we’re given a choice of berth and we said we’d try and get in a starboard berth which we missed terribly and ended up reversing out and into the next berth down, then phew a couple of lines on and we were sorted in Eastbourne sovereign harbour