We plan to catch the early ebb down the Solent and back to Lymington. This won’t start until around 1.30, so another leisurely morning after a late breakfast. The doctor on the boat moored next to us chats to someone on another boat further down. It turns out that his boat caught a gust while they were leaving a mooring in Portsmouth and he had tried to hold on and got a finger trapped. Her description was “…it was just hanging by some skin, so they flew him to a plastic surgeon in Salisbury.” This tale is OK but not especially welcome as we are already experiencing gusts of around F6. We think carefully about the process of leaving a lee pontoon without leaving a finger behind.

In the event Heydays behaves beautifully with a stern spring and we motor away feeling a bit smug. The wind in the Solent is a steady F5 from the East and the sun is shining as we turn the motor off and run back for home with just a genoa. Highly stressful…

So…although we were later than planned to be on the water, the work we have done over the winter means that the old girl is back to something approaching respectability with systems working and a few improvements made. Not the most adventurous of cruises this time, but a great preparation for some trips further afield over the summer.