Poole Cruise

We enjoyed another great week of sailing in Poole harbour in the week beginning 15th June, Andy, Joe, Simon, Martin, Owen and myself stayed at the normal Huntick retreat, while John and Deborah camped off grid at Lake Pier, without any problems (24-hour parking charge is only £2.70). We were also joined by day sailors Nick K, Maurice and Dave R at various times.

Most of us free sailed on the Tuesday in fairly strong and gusty winds, the round harbour cruise was to be on the Wednesday, but with even stronger winds forecast we postponed it until Thursday, and spent the day free-sailing, again including a trip to Rockley for coffee. In the evening those at the campsite cycled to the pub before returning to the on site games hut to watch England's first world cup game.

On Thursday 8 of us met at Lake Pier for the cruise, we were also joined by Andy on his new SUP. It would turn out to be a strange and unpredictable day weather-wise, most predictions were for a SW 8mph wind and sunshine. Because of the light wind we decided to shorten the route and miss out Giggers island. Instead we identified a buoy a short way up the Wareham channel to round and then a stop at Shipstal point for the normal beach picnic. After lunch the plan was to miss all the smaller islands and just go round Brownsea.

In reality, on setting sail in light winds and overcast conditions, we had a slow beat up to the intended mark. After rounding it thankfully the wind picked up to 10/12 mph but it had done a complete 180 and was now coming from the SE, so we now had another beat back towards Shipstal. At least we now had some decent wind which would stay with us for the rest of the day. After a pleasant but fairly cool lunch stop we prepared to launch again, but Nick had spotted a sea mist approaching Brownsea. After some discussion we decided to press on as the wind had picked up a bit more as well, and hoped the mist would dissipate before we got there. On getting closer the island had almost disappeared so it was decided to head across to Hamworthy instead. After a tea stop there we headed back to base in bright sunshine, as the sea mist seemed to stall around Brownsea - strange!

On arrival at Lake Pier the day sailors packed up and headed for home, while a few of us took to the water again for a late afternoon blast in what were now the best conditions of the week. We then enjoyed afternoon tea and cake sitting on top of the beach, followed by another BBQ back at the campsite which finished the week off nicely. Shame the sun didn’t put in an appearance earlier in the week, but at least we had plenty of wind.

Richard