SAILING TO CHICHESTER- 1/16/21

This week the boat is moving, and it feels so good. When we first arrived in the UK, a viewer reached out to us about using his woodworking shop. Mads was very interested, but Chichester was just a bit too far of a commute from Gosport. We mulled it over for a bit until, bing, a light bulb went off in our heads. Duh, we live in a sailboat; let's move the boat to Chichester for two weeks. In Chichester, we will use the workshop to work on our companionway that needs some TLC.

Chichester is only about a 3-hour sail from Gosport. On Monday, we left at one in the afternoon and got into Chichester right before sundown at around four. The sail over went extremely fast and was uneventful. It was grey and overcast with just a slight threat of rain. The water was calm, and the wind was down. As soon as we pulled out of the channel in Portsmouth, it was time to pull into the Chichester channel.

Chichester Channel is long and remote, stretching about 4 miles from the entrance to Chichester Marina. Being the middle of January, it felt deserted. Sailing up the channel, you pass hundreds of empty moorings on either side. We couldn't help but imagine what it was like here in the summer. Hundreds of boats bobbing around, dinghy's dodging one another as they zip around to their boats. The sun glaring down, an endless wake, and the constant chatter of people talking and laughing across the channel. Today, it was not like that at all. There was no sun, no wake, and we were the only boat moving for miles. Today the channel was ours. Since there was no one around, it allowed us to take our time, giving me time to practice steering the boat and Mads time to practice flying the drone.