Gentle potter in the sun

As the sun continues to beat down on us I thought Sunday would be a great day to entice the reluctant Mrs Ciao Bella onto the boat :)  With absolutely zero wind in the morning, the excuses could not be found as we made our way to the club.
My mission was to ensure that there was no stress,  I planned every maneuver, not easy when relying on a seagull outboard; but even that worked perfectly.  I raised the sails and drifted away from  the mooring,  there was barely a breath of wind so the engine went on, it was more motoring with the sails up than motor sailing :).

Cap'n Jewels on the helm

I even managed to persuade Jewels to take the helm for a while.  We gently motored around pottery pier and onto South Deep.  It's nice and quiet around this part of the harbour, even on a busy sunny sunday.  I dropped the anchor in the opening to Newton bay (4 on the track) and put the kettle on.  It was so hot that I dug out the Spinnaker and draped it over the boom to give us some protection from the heat of the sun.  

After having our picnic and a snooze we decided to go to Brownsea Island for a little walk about.  A gentle but reliable breeze  had picked up so with just the main sail up we pottered along South deep past Goathorn point (5 on the track) and back towards the harbour entrance before turning to Port to get up Blood Alley (6 on the track), I know, it's an odd name for a channel, I have no idea why it's called that but I'll have to find out ?  

I dropped the anchor for the second time today, just off the beach, and pumped up the inflatable to ferry us ashore.  Climbing the steps up the cliff made me realise just how unfit I am, maybe I should get a kayak for windless days like this :)

On the steps at Brownsea with Ciao Bella in the background

I love going ashore at Brownsea, we are National Trust members so no guilty conscience here over not paying, we'd get on free anyway.  Going ashore on an island just feels different to going ashore on the mainland... I don't know why.  Despite realising just how unfit we felt our main activity while ashore was visiting the cafe where we sat out on the lawn drinking tea and having  an ice lolly.   As it was now late afternoon the armada of boats of all shapes and sizes were coming back in through the harbour entrance, it had a look of the London marathon about it except with boats instead of people and water instead of tarmac.. sorry about the ramble, must have been something in the tea :o))

We eventually made our way back to Ciao Bella and prepared to get under way again.  The breeze had picked up a bit more and we were able to beat up between Brownsea and Furzey Islands, having to tack twice to get us to Pottery pier. From here it was a run back to the mooring.  

What a lovely day we'd had, best of all Jewels had enjoyed it.  The next plan is to put the boat into Poole marina for a few days during the holidays a use it some more, maybe be even persuade Jewels to stay aboard one night... maybe a step to far :)