Is Anybody There?

Brighton… Sea Mist – well pretty close to fog really so staying put for another day

It was the London to Brighton old car rally.. whenever I see this sort of thing now it’s just a long list of cars that I’ve owned. All my exes sadly consigned to piles of rust by now I’m sure, but look what I could have had if I’d looked after them!

Here’s my favourite – a Sunbeam Alpine – and pretty much the same colour as mine was.

A great car until the MOT was first introduced and suddenly being able to see the road going by through the floorpan was considered an ‘issue’

Then there was the Hillman Imp – which I always rather liked despite the rear wheel assembly coming adrift at speed on the Sevenoaks Bypass. Unbelievably as I was recovering the car the next morning someone approached me asking if I’d seen the rear wheel from his Hillman Imp. My wheel had jammed under the wheel arch and remained captive – his had made a bid for freedom and was lost in the long grass next to the road!

So two detached wheels within a few hundred yards of each other and just a few hours apart.. Great British Cars

But enough of having fun – Sailing awaits and despite the misty start the next morning I set off headed for Gosport.

I was anticipating the Sea Mist burning off quite quickly but in fact it just got worse…. and worse…..

I was proceeding slowly and giving regular honks on my horn – they’re loud aren’t they.. quite make your ears hurt. It’s always hard going in fog. Visibility was down to a hundred metres or so and as you’re concentrating on listening and gazing into the swirling grey it’s easy to start imagining that you can see things fading in and out.

It got worse as I approached Shoreham and as there are some pretty huge vessels operating from there I monitored Port Control – but all was quiet both on the radio and out at sea as I slowly chugged along.

From the many shapes that one sees in the fog slowly there emerged a slightly darker grey shadow – and a few moments later it morphed like the Marie Celeste into a very large ship… it was silent and didn’t appear to be moving but by the time I saw it it was close enough for me to read the name on the bow… in fact that was the only part of the ship that stuck out from the fog. A radio call got an immediate answer that they were in fact at anchor and as I got closer I was then able to see their anchor ball. But there had been no bell or gong sounded.

I can only generously assume that the fog was low level and at the height of their bridge it was clearer. Presumably they saw me on radar and could see I would pass safely 100 yards ahead of them…!!!! it would have been nice if they’d shared that information though!

It was much closer in real life. I think digital cameras record a lot of infra red so they see through the fog better than I do.

As the Looe Channel approached the fog lifted to a different world of hot, clear blue skies and a steady 10 knots just forward of the beam, so from then on it was a great sail straight to Gosport via the submarine gate.

So a chance to catch up with some friends for a few days and then Westward Ho……

I spoke to a friend who’s relocating his huge power cruiser from Eastbourne to Gosport. He told me where his new berth is to be and it’s very close to the fuel pontoon… just as well really…. I used under £5 of fuel from Brighton to the Looe Channel… just saying 🙂