Departure from England - Lymington, Guernsey

16 - 22 May

Needles - Isle of Wight After many delays we finally left Gosport and motored down the Solent to Lymington to give the engine a good test. All seemed OK. We stayed a couple more nights as the weather forecast was not good for a Channel crossing, and did various odd jobs on the boat.

On the 19th we left Lymington and anchored in Newton Creek on the Isle of Wight for a couple of hours for lunch, then gently sailed down to Alum Bay (by the Needles) to anchor until 2.00am when we departed for the Channel crossing. We found the light in the compass didn't work, so we fixed up a red headlight torch (good tip from a letter in one of the sailing magazines). Also found the winches not working properly.

Arrived St Peter Port in Guernsey at 4.00pm on the 20th, knackered after a very lumpy and cold trip.

21st - Jim's birthday. He dismantled the winches - a gear had been put back in the wrong way on each, so that problem was easily sorted out. Then the compass - Jim undid the screws - the wrong ones and the oil came out! Major problem. Asked around and obtained a phone number for a somebody who might be able to fix it. No answer all day on the phone...

... or first thing the next morning. Finally around 10.00am he answered. He'd been injured in a traffic accident and was now waiting to go to hospital in Southampton - but he could fix the compass if we could get to his house, so we jumped straight on a bus. He and his wife were both very kind, and he refilled the compass for us, to our great relief. At last we would be able to leave Guernsey (and the UK) and head for Brittany.

Fitting out

October 2007 - May 2008

On our return to Portsmouth in October we rented a berth in Port Solent at the top of Portsmouth Harbour for three months, spent time visiting our families and friends - and were around when our latest grandchild was born in December.

At the beginning of January we rented a cottage in Gosport where we had arranged for the boat to go into Gosport Boatyard to get our engine problems sorted out, a new rudder to be fitted, some other odd repairs, and to complete the fitting out.