Small Boat to Chichester - Day 7

A late-ish start this morning saw us locking out of Chichester Marina just before half past eleven to run down to Hayling Island for the night.

After a short diversion upstream to get a look at Dell Quay from the water, we motored downstream on the ebb tide in a stiff breeze.

Through Itchenor, the conditions weren't too bad although dodging the boats on the moorings was an interesting exercise with some lying to the wind from one direction, some to the tide from the other and some ask over the place.

As we got into more open waters the chop stated to build advanced to make matters worse now that we were fairly committed to crossing the harbour the wind went from F5/6 gusting 7 to a solid F6 gusting F7 and almost hitting F8 in the worst gusts according to ChiMet.

It was slow and bumpy but we made it across without incident. Getting onto the allocated berth at Sparkes Marina was a little tricky in the conditions but we managed it ok and repaired to the bar to recover!

A meal this evening rounded off the day although I think we might have to go on to water and ships biscuit next week given the size of the bill!

Tomorrow we'll hopefully start back eastwards. We might duck in to Shoreham or Brighton but if the conditions are ok we may make a run for it and push on to Rye which would be an overnight passage

Oh and provided my phone has a signal and the battery hasn't gone flat, Brigantia should show up on the misunderstood.com AIS ebb site