The question the night before, was how late can we leave it before getting up to catch the last of the ebb out of the harbour and the early flood back up to the Solent?

We settle on up at 5.30 and leave at 6. In the event though, we are awake at 5.15 and realise that the tide predictions (always notoriously random in the harbour even with modern technology) show even less water than we had reckoned. A slightly more hurried departure than we had planned sees us inching over the shallows with barely more than 10cm between us and a 4 hour ignominious wait for the water to come back. We hold our breath…..and then we are in the heaven of deep water once more and motoring into the rising light.

Now we can properly focus on coffee and toast as we don wet weather gear for what turns out to be a very showery ride back…this is what English summers are supposed to be like and the light across the Isle of Wight tells of more stuff to come!

Some of the showers are actually torrential, but they don’t dampen our memories of what turns out to be a short (in distance) cruise but really relaxing just pottering around the tremendous beauty on our Dorset doorstep.