Pump it up...

Much the same as yesterday. Jewels was on the second day of her dinghy sailing course so I headed out on Jelly bean, This time without James as he was busy revising for his GCSE's. Weather wise it was much better. A steady F3 from the NW gave me a lively blast upto Hamworthy. I had to keep avoiding the swarms of racing dinghies coming out from the various clubs around the harbour. I had a little practice with 'heaving to' in the middle of the harbour. It worked a treat, with the Jib backed and the tiller hard over the boat was just creeping at less than 1 knot but nice and steady so I could put my coat on, adjust my lifejacket and admire the view.



Once at Hamworthy I tried to heave to again so that I could take some piccies but the wind had picked up slightly and I was still drifting at 2 knots so I decided to drop the anchor. By the time I was ready, anchor laid, sails flaked etc, the sailing school had headed back to the shore for refreshments and a bit of theory work.



I unpacked the inflatable and started pumping it up on the coachroof... Not the easiest thing to do. In the end I had one side pumped up and a bit of air in the other side but couldn't get the floor slats in so over the side it went! the plan worked, I was able to push slats in and fully inflate it. I had a quick hello to Jewels and the other before rowing back to the boat for my Big soup and tea. In the afternoon I watched various people falling out of Toppers and Picos before hoisting my sails and setting of back to EDSC. The wind was upto F5, I had a reef in the main and Jelly Bean was flying (As flying as aFantasy 19 can).
There was not much traffic on the way back. Only a beautiful old Gaffer on it's way back in from a trip in the bay.
Trying to pick up the mooring was interesting, I had to give up in the end and find a big spce where I could drop the sails and then motored back to the mooring.