Episode 10, Continuing west along the south coast of England

 Episode 10, Continuing west along the South coast of England.

Sometimes the photos get a bit out of order, so please excuse this if you noticed.  

 Scrubbing the boat. 

Servicing the main cabin hatch. Everything is stiff after two + years up on the hard due to travel restrictions. Slowly we are getting ahead of the endless list. 

Departing Poole about 0630

The Ocean 60 giving a better perspective of the massive beam that these vessels have. 

 A promising day.

 Harry and his wife...the rocks are named.

 After we cleared and turned west we had a lovely sail 

Approaching Portland harbour near Weymouth 

This harbour was important during the war as a muster point for personnel and for the mulberry dock sections that were sunk in the harbour prior to being towed across for D day landings. 

 During the 2012 Olympic Games hosted by London the sail boat races were held here in Portland. We counted over 150 sailing dinghy's going about the harbour.   

 Ocean row boat, keel boat club racing and the dinghy's in the back ground. 

 Hand signals save relationships when anchoring. Yes the new windlass worked a treat. 

 Portland headland hosts a massive prison. I could not help but think of Kingston Ontario and its Olympic harbour next to the penitentiaries. 

 Beautiful evening on anchor. 

 Noel  returning to the cockpit, windlass controls in hand We are very pleased with this gear.

Departing Portland 0930 to catch the tide (we hope) its so horrible when I get this wrong. 

 There is a crowd of boats ahead so looks like we have the tide times correct!

 This can be a very nasty bit of water to navigate. When they departed for D day is was dark, stormy and really crowded.

 Flowering gorse and quarry works.

 We had company astern and ahead

 The views from these homes must be wonderful

 Substantial accommodation's to this light house 

Earlier light structures 

 after rounding Portland Bill it was a motor sail.

Noel sporting my Brighton Pier sunglasses.

 We had a visit from a pod of Porpoise which is what the fleck of white is...they are beautiful and so hard to get a photo of.  

 Approaching Dart harbour after a 53 mile day. 

 

 We will be in for dinner. What a great day.

Cool and overcast with little wind.

  Port side view

 Starboard side view 

 Church bells ringing as we passed

Rafted along side on the town "Trot Dock". They live very close to Steeple Ashton Wiltshire where my cousin Arthur and family live. Small world.

 Beautiful evening 

Looking out towards the harbour entrance. The town of Kingsmere on the port side.

 Time to change the fuel filter.

 Kalinka 1 from the town Quay

 Walk about at low water

 Great church door

 Old and new construction side by each, Scars of war damage. 

The street leading up to the market square. 

 Ice cream in our jumpers and coats

 

 Hope to solve the groaning of the gears with cleaning and greasing.  

 Did a bit of a shop and found perfect larger 

 The previous evening we had a visit from Jamie who had done lots of long distance sailing as crew and delivery skipper. Presently settled and raising a young family working a free diving scallop fisher. He offered to deliver a few the next day if we were still around....we were very much around for that. 

 Jamie returned!

 Skilled with a butter knife

 What a generous sole. Jamie still had 2 hours of driving to deliver his catch to the waiting umpteen star cheff's and then home to Salcome. 

 What a feast we ate them raw.

 We think these were the top shells, we returned them to the sea bed as the shell fish were still alive. The other half shells were clean and so we have saved them... not sure for what but we shall figure that out another day. 

 What a wonderful chance encounter.

And so ends this blog, we hope you will join us for the next episode.