Shopping

Shopping.... What's that got to do with a sailing blog?   Ah well, it just goes to show that some good can come from a bad start.

Julie wanted to go to Gunwarf Quay to do some shopping and as my niece has recently moved to Southampton I thought it would be nice to invite her along.   The drive into Portmouth was particularly slow, not helped by the fact that I'd missed the first exit off the M27 and Pompey were playnig at home.
We eventually got parked and got about the serious business of shopping, Espresso at Cafe rouge,  lunch at Jamie's Italian, that kind of thing. We were going to stop for another coffee so I suggested that we went to Port Solent as Ali hadn't been there. 
I thought we could go to LLoyds as they have a nice outside area over looking the marina. As we walked along the Marina I noticed that the pub had changed it's name to the 'Sir Alex Rose' ... I was just about to say "that's the bloke who sailed solo around the world in the late 60's" when Jewels pointed to 'My Lively Lady' moored along side.

The charity 'around and Around' operates My Lively Lady and 'Robertons Golly' to encourage young people with diminishing prospects to pull together. For me it was just great to be able to step aboard both these boats. I shall have to re read the books now as I will be able to visualise so much more having been on the actual vessels.

Ali and me beside Robertsons Golly

To finish we had more coffee at Prezzos over looking these two historic yachts... Not sure if it was all the coffee or the yachts that was making me buzz. :-)



Harbour pottering

Hi Since returning from Holiday I have been out in the harbour a couple of times just to potter about. 
I made an eveing trip to Brownsea and then last weekend I took my father in law out for the day.  We arranged to meet the rest of the family at Shipstal point for a picnic.
There was very little wind and we had to motor most of the way.  The Bournemouth Air show was in full swing and we could see the smoke trails hanging over Brownsea.  Once at Shipstal I pumped up the inflatable and we paddled ashore.  We settled down to our picnic on the beach just in time to see the Red Arrows fly low along the channel at the end of their display.   
After and hour or so of watching the inside of my eyelids we made our way back to JB and slipped away back towards the harbour.  The wind picked up a bit and we had and hour or so of decent sailing.

Maurice at the Helm.

Thje harbour was unusually quite, despite it being a fairly windless day there weren't even many motor boats out.  I guess they'd mostly been out in the bay watching the air display.  I have just read Daisy Grace's blog and realised that he was at Shipstal point at the same time... I must have been examaning the backs of my eyelids at the time.

The training ship 'Tenacious'

One exception was this tale ship coming back into the Quay, it is the training ship tenacious which belongs to the Jubilee sailing trust.  The ship and others belonging to the trust aims to promote integreation of able bodied and disabled people through working together on tall ship voyages.

As the day drew on the wind died again and we had to resort to the stinky motor again.  It's at these times that I really envy the dinghy sailers who seem to be able to make good headway with just the slightest of breeze.  We picked up the mooring at a bout 7pm and where on our way home shortly after.  I called home to let them know to put the kettle on, this is when I heard the sad news that one of the Red Arrows had crashed at Throop.  A sad piece of news, the pilot apparently sacrificing himself to avoid causing more injuries on the ground.