This voyage took us from Beatrice Rose's home port of Southsea Marina to Lymington, Poole, Portland, Yarmouth, Newtown Creek, Folly Reach (R. Medina) and back to Southsea. We logged 195 miles, 95% of which was sailing close-hauled to windward.
The opening weekend saw foul weather (in which an 11m yacht was lost), some of which we sat out for a day in Lymington after becoming bored beating into a Force 7 through the Solent. During that enforced rest, I took out the FT817 in the hope of making some CW QSOs as m0xpd/mm, but discovered that Berthon, Lymington (in common with most other marinas) is QRM hell (there are lots of noisy inverters etc on boats) and 40m was s9 +10dB of solid, ugly noise.
VERY unusually, I had also packed the FT817's microphone, so I switched to 2 metres and answered a shout from Rob, g6bdv. Rob was on a cliff-top above the Needles (the conspicuous rocks at the western tip of the Isle of Wight) and reported 50 miles-an-hour wind gusts at that exposed location. Here's a photo of Rob's location which I took a few days later as we passed on our (engine assisted) run east from Portland - in rather calmer conditions!
We shared Poole Quay with a pretty brace of tall ships: the Sea Cadets' Training Ship "Royalist"...
Later, after a night in the new marina associated with next year's Olympic sailing events at Portland and a visit to Yarmouth, which was appropriately dressed for the visit of the Old Gaffers this weekend...
we spent a night on a buoy in the idyllic Newtown Creek (here seen with shoal draft boats moored close to the "Conspicuous Black Boathouse")...
At last, I had escaped the buzz and drone of the boaties' QRM and could enjoy some real (i.e. CW) QSOs - most notably with Fred, dl4zby, nr Frankfurt.
A terrific trip - which landed me back ashore in time for tomorrow's Red Rose QRP Festival. Thanks, Neil!
...-.- de m0xpd(/mm)
No comments:
Post a Comment