New crew

Last night John and myself had our first joint sail.  John  has volunteered to crew for some of the cruises this year, the Alderney one in particular and as he is a complete novice sailor I thought we'd better get some practice in :o))

After a quick safety brief and an overview of the basic controls we raised the borrowed main sail (Thanks Roger) we slipped the mooring and made our way towards Pottery pier.  After a short period I unfurled the Genoa and Ciao Bella stretched her legs.  It was a good confidence builder for John as he could feel the power coming through the boat as he fettled the boat in and out of the wind with the tiller.
Round the back of the Island and even in light winds, due to being in the lee of the Island, we made reasonable speed against the tide. We took the chance to have some tea from the flask before breaking from the cover of the Island.
As we approached the the Eastern tip of the Island I could see the wind had picked up on the water.  We rolled in a good chunk of the Genoa and headed straight into the wind and the tide.  The next few miles gave us a lot of Tacking practise, the depth sounder also came into its own as I nearly put us on a sandbank in the harbour mouth, see the avoiding action around the five mile mark.  The tacks got slicker as we approached the end of our trip.  As the tide was starting to rip out I put away the rest of the Genoa and sparked up the outboard, I'm still impressed with this engine :) and motored back to the mooring.
A great start to the season, we have an excursion to Beaulieu planned for next week and Portland at the beginning of June.  We will cram in as much as we can before the planned trip to Alderney... I'm sooo excited.