To Poole for a couple of days...

So leaving Portmsouth about 11:30 today (Tuesday 9th) to get the tide down to Poole Harbour, destination Brownsea Island on the north west side to anchor for the night.  Flat calm seas, not a breeze of wind and very warm on the stern of the boat sunbathing.  At anchor now at Brownsea gin tastes fabulous and we are thinking of going ashore for a short walk before our pizza dinner that I made yesterday.

Lovely walks around the north of the island away from the tourists

Here's some pictures of where we are now :

 

 

The next day we went up to Wareham which is quite some distance from Poole Harbour - at least an hour's trip away (we do about 8 knots cruising speed) and there are some lovely bullrush reed sedgelands that form around the River Frome which has it's mouth in the Poole Estuary.  We were unsure of the tides here (should have checked) and although I booked us for lunch at the Old Granary (tel 01929 552010) on Wareham Quay we had to cancel as we calculated we wouldn't be able to get back out into Poole Harbour as the tide was going out.  As it happened we could have stayed after speaking to the Harbour Office in Poole later that day so it's a destination we will have to go back to.

Here's a picture of the River with those reeds :

After we returned to Poole Harbour decided to stay in the Marina for the night as there is a very good Chinese Restaurant (in the middle of an industrial estate !) (tel 01202 675833 www.citybayviews.co.uk) where we had salt chilli squid to start and then I had fillet steak chinese style and Bill had duck with fresh pineapple.  The plain noodles are to die for, the best I've had in years.  Your view is the new bridge they've built there and I recall from our last visit last year that at night when it opens up the views are stunning as the bridge looks like a yacht sail.  Very clever design.  Here's a picture I took last year when we discovered it :

The restaurant was very busy, so booking is essential.  I think I'll write a review on trip advisor it's worth mentioning something that's really outstanding as well as somewhere that's awful.

The next day I had a phone call from our Skipper on our trawler which changed our plans so we had to be home by Friday 12th July to fill in some paperwork, so all is not lost, I was prepared to miss band practice on thursday night so we at least had another day in this lovely hot weather.  So, decided as it was an easterly breeze to go to Totland Bay for the day.

Here's a picture of yours truly :

Bill rowed ashore for a walk whilst I updated this, sunbathed and he booked a table at the Waterfront Restaurant - somewhere we've been before that's really good.  So after a gin and tonic rowed ashore in our inflatable dinghy - I had seafood linguini and Bill had a steak.  All good again.

So set off for Portsmouth, got back about 10pm.  Sea flat glass and calm.

Went out again on Saturday to do a bit of fishing, Bill caught a bream which he's having on the BBQ tonight.  I'm a bit boated out and of course there are things to address at home - chickens, cats, bacon........