Portland for a while

On Thursday night we invited the other WOA boats in Poole Quay Boat Haven for drinks on or near Kalessin, which was very nice and informal, and a good chance to catch up with some of the other owners. Fortunately we split spontaneously into groups of six, in the cockpit, on the pontoon and on the foredeck, so hopefully we were all Covid-safe.

For the night of Friday July 2 we had two options: stay another night in Poole or head off for Portland a day early. I dithered for some time about options then discovered that one of the other WOA boats in Poole had enquired about staying an extra night and had been told there were no spaces. That made the decision easy, so at 6am on Friday we headed out of PQBH heading westwards. Once again it was a day of light winds and tidal planning – there are overfalls (whirlpools caused by the tide) off Durlston Head and worse ones off St Alban's Head. I don't think we were quite close enough in to avoid the latter, but in the relatively benign conditions there was no great problem. 

Old Harry rocks

The next worry was the extremely active Lulworth firing range, where live fire was due between 0930 and 1230 that day. We had left early not just to get fair tide but also in an attempt to clear the range before firing started, and I think we were successful as no-one called us or warned us off. Behind us a number of WOA boats including Camomile were called on Ch 16, but we couldn't hear their side of the conversation. At least one boat heading for Lulworth Cove was told to go away.

As we approached Portland the entertainment included a number of cruise ships anchored out in the bay. The wind got up enough for us to sail for the last hour or so. David and I had an interesting discussion as we approached the vast outer walls of Portland Harbour. He was convinced that the opening in front of us was Weymouth Harbour. I was equally sure it was the north entrance to Portland, which it was in fact, and we entered with no problem at all while a tanker bound for the refuelling berth entered through the east entrance. (There's a south entrance too, but it's been blocked by the sunken HMS Hood since 1914).

Lots of Westerlys on S Pontoon

Portland is a huge Victorian man-made harbour which is the home of the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, and it hosted the Olympic sailing events in 2012. The marina dates from that time and although it occupies a relatively tiny bit of the harbour it's big and spacious, with dedicated visitor pontoons on the outer end, and its own inner harbour wall to reduce swell. All the Westerlys were on S pontoon, which was great apart from the very long walk to the facilities. We got a good location on the inside of the pontoon and all in all I was glad we got there on Friday.

There were WOA drinks on the Friday evening and the main WOA entertainment was shanty singing on the Saturday night. Both were led from Morning Mist which was immediately behind us, so Sam could join in without even having to leave the boat. After two sessions of manly shanties I was able to introduce the group to the Housework Shanty which we sing in Rough at the Edges, It went down very well and I'm sure Tim Brook would have been proud of me.

Walking around the prison 

Chesil Beach with Portland Harbour to the right

Chesil Beach from on top

The weather here is very odd with mist, clouds, sun and rain following each other in quick succession. On Saturday afternoon I was able to enjoy a great walk up to  HMP The Verne and across the ridge to get a wonderful view along Chesil Beach. What a very strange beach it is, looking more like a vast sea wall from most angles and held together with vast wire baskets. Walks around here seem to be dominated by the ghastly A354 which is almost impossible to cross without a central refuge, even running. On Strava you can see where I diverted quarter of a mile uphill to try to find a place where I could see traffic coming in both directions.

Sunday saw us saying farewell to David Jibb who spent an amazing three weeks with us and has been an invaluable crew. It was great to be able to discuss navigation with someone who was both knowledgeable and interested, and several times he alerted me to issues I had completely overlooked. Of course we do some things differently but I think we reached a compromise on most things and he gave us a bottle of gin and some tonics on his departure, which was above and beyond the call of duty. I do hope he enjoyed it, and that he gets out to Sharina II soon. 

Just as David messaged me to say he was home in Deal, Ben and Anne arrived. Hooray! They found me dithering once again about departure. Sunday had been very windy, windier than forecast perhaps. Monday offered a relatively short window of modest winds, straight on the nose, with wind starting to build again by late afternoon for a seriously windy day on Tuesday. The fleet was dividing, with some going for it and heading out around the terrifying Portland Bill (it has a scary tidal race) to go for Torbay or Dartmouth, others waiting out the wind in Weymouth, and some heading back to the Solent. I decided to get up very early and trot over to Chesil Beach to look at the sea state, which I did. Actually the sea state was ok, but the prospect of heading straight into a F4 for at least six hours with a crew who hadn't got their sea legs yet seemed like a really bad idea. In fact it seems it was not as bad as expected, and apart from Camomile, who suffered a transmission failure and had to be towed into Dartmouth, the rest all reached their intended destinations without problems.

Weymouth Marina had no room for us and I didn't want to be rafted up on Wemouth quay, so we decided to stay where we were where we could at least get Sam ashore (although sadly the accessible facilities are out of use, so no shower). We managed to get Sam off the boat on Monday afternoon for a walk to Portland Castle where we had tea and looked at the view, then to Chesil Beach so Sam could see it, and back along the ghastly A354. I diverted to Lidl to get some rice just as it started to rain, and Ben and Anne managed to get Sam back on board between them, bless them. It took well over an hour in the cockpit tent with blankets, hot tea and the electric fan heater before Sam thawed sufficiently to come below.

Here we are at 1630 on Tuesday and I still haven't been off the boat today. After torrential rain overnight we have had strong and steady winds of up to 25 knots almost all day. A chance to do some work and catch up with this blog, at length. We're still hoping to leave here on Thursday.