Sailing on Sunny October Days

The Isle of Wight has been enjoying a wonderfully warm start to October, so where else would you find us? but down at the boats.

Skipper took a few days off work and I put down my knitting needles (currently cast on with winter woolly hats!) and we donned our summer sailing gear and cast off

The river Medina was very busy with lots of little craft all enjoying the mini heat wave. These dinghies were having a race, it is always fun to watch others and it was especially interesting to see how they do in "our racing waters".

The tide was high with a light SE blowing, so it was more of a sedate slow procession for them.

We watched them as we sailed our Mirror.

Another day we took our Sunstar 18 out on the Solent. a beautiful early morning sun made the water glisten and sparkle as we motored down to the mouth of the river.

Raising the mainsail once clear of the navigation buoys we sailed on a very light NE breeze heading East.

We made 2 occasionally 3 knots of speed using the tide to take us East. The kind of sailing when you can set your course, cleat off the jib and main sheets and hold your sandwich in one hand, coffee cup in the other.

She bobs along happily in the warm sunshine.

When the tide turned we had sailed far enough East for me to take a photo of Quarr Abbey
A view from the Solent, you can make out the tower and Abbey nestled in the trees.

Next month I will be taking part in our Christmas Crafts At Quarr event.

I will blog more details on this soon.

And so home, a simply lovely day.