Thursday 16 May

So with plan B in mind we set off at a reasonable time - 9:30am to go to Lymington.  The weather is nice.  Almost clear skies and sunny.  But it is a bit cold.  The wind is light but South East so we can sail.  Given that it doesn’t get above a 2, we are going along quite nicely at just under 4 knots.  Maybe all our new gear is working.  We even put a fishing line out, but the paravane won’t stay under the water, so we give up.  As it is calm I make sandwiches which we eat under way.  But then the wind drops and turns around to be nearly on the nose, so we have to give up and motor.  Anyway, I want to make it to the fudge shop to stock up for the Channel crossing.  The little shop in Lymington makes the best fudge in the world!  It also has great ice cream.

We get into Lymington at about 4:00pm.  In the sun it is quite warm feeling. We get our fudge and ice cream cones (which neither of us should be eating- given our weight) and we have a nice walk around the town.  Buy just enough food to keep us going for a couple of days.  

So back to the boat.  As the sun is going down it is getting cool, so we turn the heating on.  First horror, the heater is not working.  It seems to have given up the ghost.  We have also discovered that the spray hood has ripped stitching.  So we still have problems.  Later we also find that the toilet is not working properly despite it having been completely replaced.  It does not empty to sea at all.  It keeps going into the tank.  At least that is the best way around, but it is a pain.  So we now have three things wrong with the boat and no time to have them fixed.  Not a great start.

We have changed plans again.  Richard has been doing the plotting and says that the distance to Cherbourg is the same more or less as that to Guernsey, so we are going to go straight to Guernsey.  That will save us one day.