On Monday 7th June we moved down to Hurkur and left for Brighton the next morning in the 9.30am lock. We booked ahead – a necessary evil at the moment with everyone having to stay in this country for their holidays. We left in bright sunshine, but when we got to Beachy Head there was a thick fog bank and we didn’t see the beach until after Newhaven! That was the story of our trips this year, fog, fog and more fog! Thank goodness for GPS plotters. We went on to Gosport after two nights in Brighton, a foggy journey of course, and arrived about 5.30pm. Another night there then sailed to Chichester on Saturday 12th June. The sun was out, hurray! We got there on free flow which was a bonus, and ended up next door to the berth we had on our last visit, K21. We left Hurkur there for a few weeks, popping home occasionally for appointments and to collect the car. Weather was very mixed but we were able to get out and about and enjoy the delights of Chichester and neighbouring towns.
On July 2nd, we left Chi bright and early on the 7am lock and emerged into a very murky foggy harbour. Could hardly pick our way through the moored yachts but luckily we had a reciprocal track showing on the plotter to go by. The fog lifted slightly out at sea but we didn’t see land at all, only the wind farm (luckily!) Beachy Head was once again a pea-souper and all the way to Sovereign entrance. We didn’t see it until the harbour wall was almost on top of us, and couldn’t see the locks until quite close – we were glad to get back onto our berth in one piece. My head was hurting badly too so I was especially pleased to be back. We arrived about 6pm so a long day, the reason for going without a stop was that Brighton was fully booked (they were dredging the visitor area and only about five visitor spots were available each day – not very helpful in middle of the summer season).
