Sailing to Brighton - 2
The second leg of our trip to Brighton (first leg described here) was always going to be a battle against the tide. We did our best to mitigate this by getting going early, at 0500, after a night on the beers. Thankfully, one of the crew decided this was a good moment to take a picture of me.
I can appreciate that getting up and starting to work at that time is not for everyone, but take a moment to appreciate the sunrise I got to appreciate while the rest of the country was sleeping.
The first few hours of the trip were great sailing, but fairly uneventful. Most of the crew took the opportunity to catch up on a few hours of sleep, so I stayed on the helm and had a great time just working with the wind, and watching with satisfaction as the miles went by.
Of course, you don't get plain sailing like this forever and before long we had to round a land mass called Selsey Bill, the pointy bit at the lower left of this image.
Image copyright information: By Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11604879
This natural constriction causes the tide to 'race', as any liquid would when you force it through a narrow gap. We had hoped our early start would get us around it just before the tide shifted, but sadly this didn't work out and we ended up bobbing around 6 miles off shore with 2 knots of current pushing us back the way we had come, and virtually no wind to push us forwards. We had to run the engine at close to full power just to stay more or less stationary.
When I look back on this trip, it's the time we spend stuck in this position that jumps first to my mind. As a sailor you have to be comfortable that you can at least manage the immense power of the sea, even if you know you will never defeat it. Listening to the powerful diesel engine working so hard for nearly 3 hours for virtually no reward was a reminder of just how mighty the power of the tide can be.
On the plus side, we did enjoy a brief visit from a passing pod of dolphins - the first time I've seen dolphins in the wild in this part of the world. There were perhaps 5 or 6 of them playfully crashing into each other, and popping through the water's surface. The sun was by now right over head, in a cloudless sky. If you have to stand still for a couple of hours, you could definitely do it worse places than where we were.
