We woke to find the world had changed – low water had revealed all the hidden shingle banks and channels.
Still bleary eyed, I looked out of the starboard window to see our neighbour some way away, with an empty buoy in front of him, and then looking out of the port window, I could see we were about to broadside a pontoon and rib attached to another buoy.
Thinking we must have either thrown or dragged our buoy (we were one of the largest boats in there), I grabbed the engine key and reversed away from the rapidly approaching pontoon whilst Heidi, still in her pyjamas, rushed to the bow with a boathook.
Noticing that the buoy we were on was still attached and holding ok, we realised that the low water had considerably widened our swinging space and beached the pontoon on the next buoy in the path of it.
We decided to move to the next empty buoy along, downwind of our neighbour and out of harms way, until the rise of tide allowed us all to swing freely again.
By noon we had enough water to cross the bar, and again we tiptoed out across the shallows and then unfurled the sails for the trip to Cowes.
Although leaving us close hauled, the wind was a pleasant 12kts, rising to 16kts by the time we reached Gurnard, and with a fair tide we made good speed, passing a super yacht on the way (well, it was going in the opposite direction :).
On arrival, we found an empty visitor berth at Shepards Marina, our home for the next 3 nights as Heidi’s Mum and Dad were coming over to meet us in the morning.
Cost: £90 (3 nights inc. leccy)
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