What happy memories do you have?

[Bottle_of_Rum]

I realise that forums are generally for asking for help etc.

Seeing as here in the UK it is the end of the season, and right now its dull and raining.

So I wonder, what is your best memory/story from this year.

Best days sail or newly visited place.


Somthing that makes it all worth while.


BOR

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[Mirelle]

Terribly simple, really

Meeting some friends in Walton Backwaters and messing about in sailing dinghies with our combined offspring.

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?

 

[Rabbie]

'Doing' Studland Bay to my mooring at Emsworth in one tide despite Cowes Week fleets in the way. Not the best story of the year, just the most satisfying trip for my 21 footer.

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[ChrisE]

Easter's booze cruise Keyhaven to Cherbourg.

Bright sun, 3NE and cruising chute there, 4 ships in shipping lane; bright sun, 3SW and cruising chute back, 5 ships in shipping lane and £500 of wine on sole. Met friends mid-channel in both directions.

It all went downhill for the rest of the season.

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[TonyBrooks]

WEll - you did ask.

My season never finishes - last Sunday was great - chugging along in the sun, smell of wood smoke and cooking from other boats, and nothing else moving, just the heron, pheasants & small birds on the banks.

Best of all - late last August, about 06.00, mist rising being stained by the rising sun. Absolutely still and quiet apart from the wild life and the soft, rythamnic thud of the Bukh just off idle. Large mug of tea and egg and bacon wad being eaten at the tiller, and far enough ahead of that !!!! steamboat not to have to hurry.

A few waves and "cheers" with tea mugs from a few early risers on other boats. A church clock strikes the half hour through the waist high, soft mist.

Its what its all about

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[Captain_Chaos]

I can't mak up my mind whether it was:-

The first cold beer in Ploumanac'h after an incident free crossing from Plymouth. Baking hot, glorious sun set and bottle of fizz over the side cooling...or

The cup of tea at 3.00 am in Plymouth after the return trip when after being becalmed mid channel, the weather kicked up, strong wind warning, and we surfed through the Eastern approach to the Sound on some pretty big rollers..definitely a time for the brown mustos


<hr width=100% size=1>My drinking team has a sailing problem

 

[Stemar]

Buying my first boat.

Lovely day in May. Hand over the money, check things out then into the water with my pride and joy, a Snapdragon 24. No leaks so start the engine and chug off down the Frome to Poole Harbour. Overnight at anchor in South Deep. A five minute shower headed off NE, giving a triple rainbow over Poole and the best sunset I’ve seen in a while.

Next day we had a beautiful run under full main and poled out genoa all the way to Hurst Point then up the Solent to Portsmouth Harbour. Yes everything else overtook us, but most of them struggled, even a 40ft Janneau deck saloon job!

It’s hard to imagine a better introduction to sailing for my wife, or to boat ownership for me!


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[jimi]

Anchored in the Helford River, slept in cockpit watching shooting stars until I nodded off

<hr width=100% size=1>O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!

 

[Metabarca]

Bowling along in a stiff breeze south of Thun in Dalmatia and then finding a tiny boat-size bay in which to anchor in time for a dip and a wander amongst the olives. And in the evening, scotch in hand, nary a light to be seen except millions of stars! And this was mid-August!

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.comoy.com/saillinks.html>http://www.comoy.com/saillinks.html</A>

 

[Richard_Blake]

Something that makes it all worth while? No sailing for us this year - but found a new timber merchant with good stuff who will cut while you wait - douglas fir 1/4- sawn beam 4 metres long with ONE knot into the wide planks I need.
The memory: the smell of that timber going through the band saw bringing a rebirth of optimism. Still makes me smile.

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[Mudhook]

Coming home down the Wallet at night in September at the close of our first season of sailing, an offshore F4 pushing us gently onward, my boat parter at the helm and me dozing below while the boat does its best to rock me to sleep.

And watching my six-year-old slowly strolling back to the boat down the pontoon one evening under the stars, lifejacket over pyjamas, bear and toothbrush in hand. Six years ago in Sixhaven, Amsterdam, I saw these boat kids everywhere and just KNEW the water was the place for children to grow up safe and self-assured. It's only year one and my dream - all that time in the realisation - has already come true!

Mudhook

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[BrendanS]

>>watching my six-year-old slowly strolling back to the boat down the pontoon one evening under the stars, lifejacket over pyjamas, bear and toothbrush in hand<<


Wonderful image.

<hr width=100% size=1>For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three

 

[ex-Gladys]

Only having finally got the boat in September, not much opportunity as yet, but leaving Tollesbury into the rising sun in early October, and a week later a glorious day with a pleasant 1-2 just gilling along to the Colne and back....

<hr width=100% size=1>Larry Botheras

Anderson 26 "Amber"

 

[extravert]

Getting rained on every day for a week in cold dreary damp Ireland. Still loads better than sitting here pretending to work.

<hr width=100% size=1>One day, I hope to own a real boat.

 

[webcraft]

Was it . . .

The only sail this season on someone else's boat . . . a short delivery from Dunstaffnage to Crinan. Going past the entrance to Easdale Sound - which I've done several times before in other peoples' boats - and thinking:
We live two miles from here, and our own boat is moored half a mile from the house . . . (Huge Grin

Or was it the hungover trip back from Colonsay surfing under genny only at six knots plus all the way to arrive at Cuan exactly as the tide turned to let us through?

Or St. Cormack's cave after braving the narrow anchorage on a wild day for a lunch stop?

Or Jura music festival followed by the superb head-clearing blast to Gigha the next day?

Or that time the engine didn't start and we sailed through Cuan in the lightest and most fickle of breezes with the tide running at six knots in full swirling flood . . . teasing her past Cleit Rock and the sense of relief and peace as we enter the calm of Seil Sound and the home stretch . . . sailing onto the mooring held no worries after that.

No . . . maybe it was arriving in Stornoway, the first long trip in our 'new' (30 year old) boat - a real sense of achievement, even though I've done trips three times longer. Or maybe the barbecue in Loch Erisort or the magnificent, spooky overnight stop at the Shiant Isles.

What a great season, fantastic weather, great company, superb scenery . . . over a thousand miles in the best cruising waters in the world.

Now to raise the wind for next season's sailing - onward and outward.

- N





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[1114C]

One of the posts I have enjoyed the most in the last few months

For me it was getting the boat into the small anchorage at Eilean Mor at the mouth of Loch Sween, anchoring and going for a swim, getting out and not shivering then sailing back to Craobh in a force four with not a cloud in the sky

Baffles me why I live in the city!

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[Aja]

Acarsaid Mhor. South Rona. The only way to appreciate is to go there. Magic.

Donald

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[sailbadthesinner]

first time past the needles ever this year
on glen rosa
genny poled out and boat doing 10 knots throught the water 12 over ground.
practicing pilotage at high speed
with a certain john 'more sail please' matthews at the helm
mad and fun
my last weekend as a single man too

<hr width=100% size=1><font color=red>if guinness is good for you. i must be very very good</font color=red>

 

[Avocet]

Two spring to mind:

The first was watching the Whitehaven Maritime Festival fireworks in June with the gentlest of breezes just keeping the boat ghosting along about 1/2 a mile off the harbour entrance and big patches of phosphoresence at the bow.

The second was a "quick couple of hours on the tide" on a sparkling blue afternoon of St. Bees head -with the pretty white lighthouse just popping up over the red cliff edge. We saw a couple of porpoise(s)? just bouncing out of the waves a couple of boat lengths off.



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[tcm]

agreed, that was very good fun indeed.

also, sailing on new years day in BVI, having cheese arnies and rum punch for christmas lunch. On power boats, outrunning an electrical storm, skippering for a hen party, SWMBO and me going out for day trips without the kids, also with the kids, Menton, St Trop, passing YM, fixing almost everything on the boat, son#2 asking about "sugaring the pill", making a fake shark fin and the gendarmes being in stitches about it, first trip to Beauvallon nr St Maxime, approaching Gibraltar on a flat sunny october day.

Other than that it was rubbish.

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