Various October To December 2010

1-3rd October 2010 - Tim's Stag Do

For Tim's stag do we went sailing on the Solent. On arrival on Friday night, we were rather surprisingly trusted with the keys to the boat for the night, a rather large yacht easily big enough for the ten of us. The next day our skipper turned up and briefed us before we set off across the Solent. Slightly surprised that we wanted to actually do some sailing rather than just get to Cowes and drink ourselves into a stupor, he had us weaving around buoys and in between supertankers hauling struggling tugs backwards. When we eventually arrived in Cowes it was packed, and in the increasing rain and wind, we struggled to find a berth. We finally double-berthed against a small yacht hired by a couple having a romantic weekend away... imagine their surprise when an entire stag party had to clamber across their boat to get ashore! The evening was spent dashing between pubs in torrential rain, with the streets deep in water. It wasn't so bad for us, as we were wearing normal clothes, but poor Tim was in a pirate outfit complete with giant inflatable parrot. After much more beer back at the boat, we were rocked to sleep by the swell, and woke up the next day to a windy but much nicer day. The crossing back involved more dashing in and out of buoys, supertankers and hyperyachts owned by eccentric paranoid Russian billionaires, and before long were back in Swanwick.