This being the first day in December, it seemed good to be in the Solent. I suppose having sailed here so many times before it was finally feeling like we were on the way home!

Today was always going to be a short sail down to the west end of the Solent. This was to shorten the next passage down the coast to Weymouth. There was also the effect of minimising the chance of having to make the long detour to (not to mention the expense of) Poole Harbour.

The tide was due to turn and start flowing down the Solent just after midday. Therefore, after a lie in we finally got our things together and fuelled up for a departure shortly after 11am.

After making much harder work of leaving a straight pontoon than was really necessary we quickly motored out. The Solent was flat calm with the only waves on the water made by the relentless stream of ferries.

The passage five miles down the Solent to Cowes was uneventful with only the odd small boat to avoid. It was somewhat strange after months of being alone to suddenly pass five or ten yachts within five minutes. In fact I can only remember seeing three other sailing boats on the water since Inverness. One of those being at Nab Tower! We motored past Cowes and the Royal Yacht Squadron at pace with the tide now pushing hard.

As we left Cowes in our wake the wind finally started to build from behind. With only a few miles left to our destination we hoisted our sails, slowly running downwind to our destination. On passing Newtown Harbour we were met by a fleet of yachts leaving on what appeared to be a gentleman’s race to the pub. For a minute or so we found ourselves within a fleet like we had not been for sometime – quite good fun. With Yarmouth rapidly approaching we downed the sails. This was just in time to allow the ferry to enter the port and for us to follow him in. First we settled down on the pontoon to sort ourselves out, before deciding the town quay was the better option. It was only 3pm and we had plenty of time to sort ourselves out for a long passage on Thursday.

It was a nice surprise to find that Yarmouth harbour has a petrol pump on the harbour. This save a long walk. We sat down on Silverwind in the evening to the sight of boats coming in and out of the harbour. They were all taking there turn to practice mooring on the piles. This is always an amusing pass time in Yarmouth – until it’s your turn! It is at this point that we sat down and read the new copy of a popular sailing magazine. Now we discovered they had a special article on Yarmouth – what a bonus!