Seaweed, fog and a tour of the docks

Liz and Steve came down on Friday afternoon.  We ate aboard.  On Saturday we woke to the sound of foghorns.  We decided to do some sightseeing in Southampton: walked round the city walls, visited the Andy Warhol exhibition at the City Gallery and then strolled back through the parks.  By late afternoon the fog had cleared so we decided to take a trip on Toucando so that Steve and Liz could practise handling her under power.  We went down the Itchen and then went round the docks.  The engine seemed to be beginning to overheat... there is a lot of floating seaweed about at the moment, and the cooling water inlet may have been blocked for a while.  We checked and cleared the strainer and decided to give the engine a rest.  So we enjoyed a gentle sail back, getting right up the river.  We could probably have sailed onto the mooring, but decided to use the engine, and made a safe arrival.
On Sunday we were joined by Fiona, Jon, Lucia and Pandie... two racers, a day skipper and a novice (but not in that order).  We set off down the river again raising the sails at the earliest opportunity.  Toucando does not  usually tow her tender, but on this occasion she did... I suppose skipper was thinking about strategies for dealing with engine failure.  However he did not make a very good job of tying the painter, and it was Jon who spotted that the tender had come adrift neat Weston Shelf.  Anyhow, that was a good opportunity to practise man overboard procedures, as we turned round for the recovery.  Once tied on again with a good knot, we tacked down Southampton Water in bright, hot sunshine.  It was Pandie who pointed out the grey fog bank sitting on the Solent which was beginning to roll towards us.  The temperature dropped and there was the beginning of a cold clammy wetness in the air.  We kept on practising our manouevres, before we decided it was time for a gybe and a return to Southampton rather than relentlessly sailing into the fog.  We did a "training run" all the way up the docks, past Marchwood, to Millbrook and the container port, executing each gybe perfectly.  Another boat was so impressed they threw us a bottle of beer.  And we managed to stay in the sun the whole way.  There were some monsters of container ships, liners and car carriers moving around, and we enjoyed safely navigating around them, before turning and going back up the Itchen.  It was six hours of sailing in one of the most crowded waterways in the world... which we all enjoyed.  Thanks again to a fantastic crew.

Steve, Lucia, Jon and Andrew heading down the Itchen

 Lucia and Pandie

 Pandie keeping a weather eye for fog banks

 Most of the crew

 An artistic shot of the sails

(All pictures courtesy of Fiona)