Round Britain Adventure on Indian Runner

 Roger has drawn up a spreadsheet, showing where in the boat we have stored things.  On the list the ‘Port locker’ became the ‘Pork locker’, which has inevitably now stuck.  On Easter Monday we had a big surprise and found a little pig tucked away in the pork locker. He is now clearly going to be an important companion on our adventure.  Below we have Piglet sheltering under the sprayhood, happy in the cabin but not surprisingly, given the wind, seasick Piglet.  Do watch out for him in case he pops up again on our voyage! 

 We thought it was windy towards the end of March.  This was as nothing compared to Easter Monday.  Sailing and busy diaries don’t really match well. Ideally we should be able to look at the weather and hop down to the boat when it looks good.  In real life, we were coordinating five diaries for a final shake down sail with our crew, Rachel and Alan and their friend Andrew - a very experienced skipper who was kindly going to come out with us to give advice. Easter Monday was the only day we could all make.  We went down to Hamble on the evening of Easter Day and had a wonderful supper with Andrew and had the luxury of sleeping in real beds.  Easter Monday saw us rise early to contemplate the driving rain and wind outside the window - we were expecting it but had still hoped the weather forecast might be wrong.  We were on the boat by 8 and the expert crew had us leaving the pontoon by 8.20. As usual we motored down the river and then when we reached Southampton Water, went head to wind