We love sailing to Brighton, and have sailed there a few times. Now, our home port is 20nm along the coast, we decided to sail with our friends on a joint family adventure...
Onboard: Sam, Steve, the 3 children, Sam's friends, Emma and Rob, along with their 2 young children. A full boat! Nautical Miles: 55 Days at sea: 2 Night hours: 0
Conditions: A mix of overcast and amazing sunshine, coupled with fairly light winds
What, where and when?: We wanted to give our friends and their kids a taste of the high sea's, but break them in gently... We settled on a weekend adventure, sailing to Brighton, from Sovereign Harbour, Eastbourne. Arriving at the boat on the Friday night, everyone made themselves at home, before heading out for dinner. On the Saturday morning we slipped lines in a cloudless, sunny sky and made our way past Beachy Head, Belle Tout, and the fabulous Seven Sisters. It was a great passage, and it was good to see everyone enjoying being at sea (despite some sea sickness!)
Arriving at Brighton Marina, we tied up and headed to the pier for some family fun.
On Sunday, we slipped for home, in light winds. Unfortunately a couple of hours into our passage our engine overheat alarm went off. We stopped the engine, did some checks, and tried various fixes, including an impeller change, but nothing worked. This made for a very slow sail home (an additional 5hrs or so!) Still a great trip, with some fantastic memories an we will fix the engine now we're back on dry land - always easier!
Highlights:
Sharing our love of sailing with some of our closest friends
Taking our friends kids out for their first proper sail - such a joy to see them take the wheel and embrace it (even with seasickness) and to want to come back for more
Beautiful sail to Brighton along our favourite coastline
Fun times had in Brighton - glow in the dark golf was a lot of fun!
Lowlights:
Our engine letting us down