Whilst not a PandA specific post, we’re homeless from Saturday with an almost continuous set of holiday bookings through to the end of September, so have had to pack for the weeks ahead, starting with a long weekend sailing with the club on Rob’s boat, Arabis to Yarmouth, 8 weeks on PandA, James and Hayley’s wedding near Folkestone at the end of July and finally flying out to Jacana on the 27th of July. The logistics of all this are challenging, especially now that we need to be in Folkestone on Saturday 24th July at lunchtime to have a pre wedding lunch. So, we’ve left all our wedding and Greece stuff with Mary and Alan, arranged to leave PandA at Sara and David’s, booked a one way hire car from Dorchester to Gatwick, booked a camp site on the outskirts of Dorchester to clean out PandA, on Friday 23rd July, just what could go wrong?! (nothing hopefully!)
Anyway, back to this weekend for 4 nights on Arabis, Rob’s 33ft Beneteau for a CCSC cruise to Yarmouth. After weeks of rubbish weather, summer finally arrived with clear blue skies, and no wind, so the crack of dawn on Friday morning (28th May) saw a flotilla of 6 yachts motor the 40 miles to Yarmouth with the tide, arriving close to noon.
The Royal Solent Yacht Club provided us (18 CCSC members) with an excellent haute cuisine meal on Friday evening and for the rest of the weekend we did the usual things like walk, drink, eat, chat, drink, and even a bit of boat maintenance. Rob was keen to show off his new mast ladder and work on the top of his mast.
We sailed back on Monday (31st) and after a lunch stop in Warbarrow Bay arrived back at the club in the evening to dump our gear on PandA, awaiting in the club car park. A really great weekend with Rob and Dick.
We hadn’t actually booked anywhere for PandA on Monday night but fortunately Pauline offered us a parking space and a delicious dinner, and even better, Rohan offered (and we accepted!) a real bed for the night, our last probably for several weeks.
So on the morning of Monday 1st June, 2021 we began our 8 week PandA road trip, taking in Hampshire, Sussex, Essex, Norfolk, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Durham, Cumbria, Cheshire, Warwickshire and finally Dorset.
