Gale Force 8

I have a shirt which says "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but a gale force 8 excites me." What was I thinking?

Arriving in Lymington made me feel like we were home safe and sound. The showers were amazing and made me feel like a new person. I jut wanted to stay right there. I had neglected to give even the slightest consideration to the fact that we still had to get to our home marina in Gosport which was still a 3 hour sail away.

We enjoyed a leisurely morning and breakfasted on land at Vanilla Pod in Lymington, highly recommended although the service was a bit slow. The American Breakfast was superb. Bit of a shame though when the fressh squeezed oj machine broke down. We did some shopping at the T&G shop which is closing down and snagged a few bargains. We were delaying our departure hoping that the wind would die down a bit. It just wasn't happening.

So at 12:30 we set off down the channel. It got worse as we headed out of the marina. The Isle of Wight ferries were being blown sideways and with our engine full on we could barely move south. But once we turned east the wind was over our stern and with the tide's assistance we were moving at a clip.

We couldn't let the sails up because it was blowing a gale force 8. Seriously! Never mind! We still did 8 knots through the water although 3 of that was tide. We had a brief rain storm just before we turned into Portsmouth harbour but I took the children below deck and we stayed nice and dry.

Unpacking the boat was tedious and we had massively over catered particularly since we didn't eat during a couple entire days due to illness. We arrived back home last night 7:30 and got take away pizza and pasta.

My legs are still wobbling and rooms sway if I stand still for long. Marc says it will be several days before my body adjusts back to normal. My face is sun/wind burned despite sun block and little exposure to the sun. I have bruises in odd places and my manicure is ruined (although I only broke one nail during the entire trip and that was in Lymington Marina)!

My sense of accomplishment and pride is soaring. I am so proud of myself and my family and our friends. You see the character of a person when all is stripped away and I can't imagine there being a group of individuals that would have made a better crew or companions. We laughed and very briefly had a few tears. But mostly we laughed. At the situation, at each other, at ourselves.

Would I do it all over again? In a heartbeat!