We had quite an eventful first week with our new Princess 42 last week - first of all the handover last Friday, then the party at Swanwick on the Saturday, and after a quick dash home on Sunday night to water the cat and feed the plants, back to Swanwick on Monday morning to follow Mike and Mary on Jenny Wren to Guernsey.

We set off in the late morning, we left Swanwick before Jenny Wren on the basis that we were blocking her in on the pontoon - seemed fair enough to me! Anyway, halfway down the eastern Solent we bumped into these two hooligans:

And after a quick wave and a photo opportunity for all, we continued down to the Needles and then turned left for the Channel Islands.

After a bit we hove-to so that Jenny Wren could do a drive-by:

And about 100nm after we set off, we arrived in St Peter Port - Victoria Marina:

Jenny Wren is too big for the marina so they put her into the QE2 marina next door.

On the following day, Tuesday, Jenny Wren had to get back, but we decided to hang around in Guernsey for the day and just enjoy the sunshine.

On the Wednesday though it was time to head home, so we pushed off for Weymouth.

After a gentle potter up the Little Russel channel we routed west of the Casquets, then a little easterly kink to get round the TSS followed by a straight run for Weymouth.

Just south of the TSS we met this coming the other way:

How deep?? (just immediately south east of the TSS):

(Incidentally, the speed display: I have learned that it is possible to inadvertently change the speed units on the master ST60 by being slightly too enthusiastic when replacing the sun covers....)

Anyway - to Weymouth in time for lunch. We got there at 1300 which gave us an hour on a rather empty waiting pontoon for the 1400 bridge. Just enough time for chips!

Thursday was another rest day in Weymouth, and on Friday it was time to head to our new berth at Gosport. However, it was a bit foggy as we left Weymouth:

There were a few big ships anchored up in the bay:

Anyway, we continued east, only to be intercepted by the range safety vessel. Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of him cos we were a bit uncertain if he was friend or foe at first, but in the end it was all pretty straightforward - the range was active (we heard!) and we had to keep two miles off Worbarrow bay.

After this the fog thickened until at one point we were down to about 25m vis:

By now we were down to about 8kts I think, sounding the horn every two mins, and working the radar. Very flat sea though which helped. Fortunately it cleared as we got to the Fairway buoy at the bottom of the Needles channel.

After all that excitement we stopped off at Newtown Creek for lunch:

And then on to Gosport. Bit of a nerve wracking first attempt at mooring on the new berth, but we managed to keep the gelcoat intact (for now...).

After another quick dash back to Brighton on Friday night, we spent the weekend on the boat with day trips to Priory bay on both Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

A good start to the season for us - 20 hours logged over our first nine days of ownership. Roll on next weekend!

Cheers
Jimmy