More warships in Pompey

Today was our first day off after a scramble to get from Medway to the Solent in just 4 days. In a way, Sirena IV has come home to Gosport. In 1978 she was built at the historic Camper and Nicholson yard, which used to be just a short distance from where we are berthed now at Haslar Marina. She is nestled near to the former lightship Mary Mouse where we had a splendid meal last night.




This area really is all about warships. Not only are there three WWII gun-ships moored close by (all are heading for the Dunkirk 70th anniversary next month) but if you look across the water to Portsmouth, you see HMS Warrior in the historic dockyard and a bevy of today's Navy ships, all grey metal and mysterious white domes.   

And near Haslar Marina is the Royal Navy's Submarine Museum, where we went on board the only surviving WWII era submarine, HMS Alliance. It is in amazing shape. Our guide had been one of the crew- he pointed out his former bunk, and told us how he had been made very deaf by working for years in the engine room with no ear protection. A big surprise: the museum had two periscopes which poke out above the building, which meant we could spy on our own dear yacht sitting there in the marina nearby! 

Back in our floating home there was a sudden emergency on our pontoon. A yacht was just arriving, and the woman stepping off it fell badly, hurting her ankle and banging her head and face. We rallied around, picked her up and helped her on board, and suggested her husband call the marina staff who had a paramedic on hand. Luckily it turned out she didn't need hospital treatment but was quite wobbly and shocked. 

Tonight Nic cooked a delicious stir fry and we decided where to go next - a quiet place far from any warships.  

Brighton to Portsmouth - Warship special (19 May)

Brighton provided our first experience of swanky south-coast toilets & showers; each cubicle is a bathroom with shower, toilet and washbasin and they have a set between mens and ladies that can be used by both together.  Almost 5-star except they still haven't designed them to stop the whole floor getting wet.  Showers and tides ... subjects on which we have so much more to say ... but moving on, as we did at high noon.

chart table on passage, maps & logs

A long straight leg of 27 miles to Selsey Bill afforded us a beautiful broad reach/run with genoa only before a F3-4 ESE and a 1m swell that had us rolling merrily.  Except we weren't quite so merry, at first as we found our sea legs (have had flat calm for 3 days before), and then later as the genoa kept collapsing during extreme rolls.  Improved things by re-routing the genoa sheets, but regretting that we have not solved the whisker/spinnaker pole conundrum yet, nor have we found the time to understand and practice using our cruising chute.  All in good time.  We were very appreciative though that finally we had a good long day of down-wind sailing, and overall on the day we averaged almost 6kn (some tide against and some with, so you might say, roughly, that was water speed).  Incidentally, we worked out that when motoring in a calm seaway she does 5kn at 1500rpm which is very economical on fuel.  I think her slippery bottom (newly anti-fouled) helps.  Too technical?  We think not.

HMS Bulwark leaving The Solent

Don't look now, it's the Navy

W33 - chasing us ... or passing us?

We took the Looe Channel past Selsey Bill, which is shallow and narrow and a good short cut, and then across to Horse Sands Fort (motor on and sail furl here) and then follow the edge of the shipping channel into Portsmouth, crossing over to the 'wrong' side for entry as that's what they require.  We saw HMS Bulwark coming out, the Navy's largest and the one stationed at Greenwich during the Olympics, and a smaller navy ship ('W33' - a frigate?) came past then stalked us from behind before steaming past towards Cowes.

We dropped into Haslar Marina which is conveniently first on the left, on the Gosport side, and moored with no fuss onto a visitor pontoon.  It was 2050, and a quick check with the Marina office suggested the restaurant in the beautiful lightship at the marina entrance stopped serving at 2100.  A very quick tidy up (of the boat, not us) had us there at 2105 and the wonderful Maria happily took our order.  All food tastes fabulous after a long passage, yet this was even better than that - and there was time for a pudding.  Which explains why this blog was written not that night but on the following day.  Zzzzzz.