Here they are swimming off Bembridge!!

Some of the ships in the Solent

Of course the trip on Venture to the Channel Isles was cancelled, thank goodness, it was rough enough in the Solent. In the end, just Ray and Tina, John Hough and me and Paul ended up in Portsmouth for the bank holiday weekend. On Saturday we went across to Bembridge for our breakfast, see photo! Then we thought we would go to Cowes and go for a walk up the Medina River, it was really rough, and we began to smell petrol, so had to go back to Portsmouth to sort that out, it turned out to be leaking from the front red tanks, because it was so rough. The petrol was trickling out of the cap and down the boat, we then ran to Cowes on the front tanks to empty them. It was so rough Ray thought we had gone 25 miles, its about 8!! Not so bad coming back, wind was with the tide, but did we sleep well that night.

On Sunday there was no boating just walking!

By Monday the wind had eased so off we went to Bembridge for another breakfast, Paul and Ray swam!! mad fools. We called in at the Clarence Marina and saw all the Motor Boat Monthly boats waiting to go on their cruise across the Channel, we had a chat with one of the guys we know, Richard from Guernsey, then it was back to get the boat out of water, Venture is now home in Wales.

On a brighter note just look how lovely Rowena's stern looks. I'm sure that the rest of her will be as nice when she is finished.

Keep looking at the blog we are off on a RIB cruise to the Channel Isles for May bank holiday. Should be plenty to write about then.

This photo shows the cracks in Rowena's hull that are worrying Paul, he is quite convinced that when she goes back into the water she is going to leak alarmingly.

Well here are some photos you never thought you would see, me scrubbing Rowenas bottom! I'm the one with the leopard print wellies, you have to keep up appearances even when you have royal navy overalls on!

Yes we had to scrape off all the loose antifouling with a scraper and wire brush, my arms ached, my back ached and I was covered in black dust and looked like a coal miner. That took all of one day, the next day we had to prime all bits that we had scraped off. Once our arms have unstiffened we have to paint on the anti fouling that may be next week when Rowena is out of the paintshop.