Island Harbour Rally Report (12th and 13th August)
It was hot – it was very hot. We had 13 boats, 28 people and numerous beautifully behaved, lovely dogs all doing our very best to keep cool. A location with a restaurant called ‘The Breeze’ just did not live up to its name. It was hot, humid, and very still.
The inventiveness of boating people came to the fore as we rummaged through our lockers to find make-shift sunshades for our cockpits as well as ways to get what puff of wind there was through the boats. The nights were sticky.
On the first evening we had a welcome glass of bubbles followed by a BBQ on the brown (it used to be green) near the Spice Girl bus. The Isle of Wight is in drought status with a hosepipe ban. Everything was tinder dry so the BBQs were moved out from under the trees. Nobody wanted to set fire to the marina – they might not let us back.
We had a fire bucket and a fire extinguisher on hand but the flames were very modest and the drive pass of the fire engine towards the end of the evening was, we thought, unnecessary and a slur on our ability to BBQ without burning everything down. Although it was good to know that it was in the vicinity I suppose.
In our best Hi Di Hi manner we had arranged games on the green for the Saturday afternoon. We thought boules, croquet and garden Jenga would provide a little light entertainment. But, as the thermometer soared into the thirties we all decided to give it a miss and just chilled out on our boats.
We retired to The Breeze for our evening meal. It is currently going through a sticky phase and despite checking and double-checking they managed to deliver 19 meals and forgot the remaining 9. The food was fine, but you couldn’t say the same for the organisation. I would like to thank everyone present for their good-natured approach to the delay. Apparently, worst things happen at sea.
It was, however, just delightful to just sit and chat to everyone on such a tropical summer’s evening. It really did feel like we were in the Med or Caribbean.
Sunday saw the departure of many of us. We’d dutifully booked our lock out time and Legato was joined in the lock by Bathia, Thomas Hardy and a smaller motor boat. I believe that we had in the region of a foot between Legato and the lock gates, another foot between us and Thomas Hardy and maybe two foot between Legato and Bathia – squishy.
Julie from Paxi Moon had taken a photo near Low Water Springs which showed exactly why we needed to stay in channel and head straight for the first green buoy on the way out. The channel was maybe the width of our boat (but maybe not) and there was a lovely mudbank waiting to catch us if we turned to starboard too soon.
Despite the oppressive heat and the best efforts of the Breeze, it was yet another super PSYC rally seeing friends old and new.
Sharon & Russ (Legato)