Free At Last

Finally I’ve escaped the Winter of Landlubberism for my first shakedown sail of the year!

Rather later than planned and only for a few hours, but anticipation is at least as good as fulfillment – often better some say!

It was a trip out to the condemned Sovereign Light Tower and it’s new circle of Cardinal Buoys.

The Light Tower will be sadly missed both by non-sailing types who often ask me if the one feature they can make out on the blank horizon is an oil rig, and by sailors as the only thing to aim at when leaving Sovereign Harbour.

It’s different in the Solent where there are several pleasant destinations just a couple of sailing hours away. From Eastbourne it’s either Brighton (4 hours away) or Rye (limited tidal access) or, with a bit of luck, a beam reach out to the Light Tower and back.

And happily that was the case for me – a steady 15 knots on the beam, making it the perfect day to confirm that everything still worked – including me – after the winter’s inactivity.

I returned to the usual foam in the lock – what is it that people do in marinas that causes that? Probably best not to know of course, though what I do know is that unless you wash it off your hull PDQ it leaves a persistent brown residue.

Still, it’s probably preferable to the ‘algae bloom and definitely not untreated sewage’ that we so often see near Southern Water outlets.

So now the 2022 season is officially opened I hope to be headed West very soon…