2010 Solent Social No.1

We tried to meet up at Fleet Services on the M3 at 1030 but the M25 was absolutely rammed with Bank Holiday drivers and the M3 down near Winchester wasn't much better!

We finally made it down to Lymington at about 1330 and launched at the Bath Road slipway. As soon as we stepped out of the car (seriously in less than a minute!) the slipway attendant demanded a whopping £16.50 for one boat and £12 odd for the other one (and not even a tractor to help or hose pipe to use at the end of the day!)

We quickly launched and parked the cars down the road - no way were we about to pay for the car parking for boat and trailer! After heading out on the Solent some of us immediately regretted the decision to not bother with waterproof trousers and were soaked to the skin but it was so nice to be out on the sea for a bit of fun time!

Heading north we soon had Cowes coming into view and got buzzed by two big ribs running a stag trip and moored up next to some mega expensive ribs and the Red Jet ferry at Town Quay. A quick bite to eat in the pub and we were on our way back down to Yarmouth to meet up with some of our group who didn't want to face the windward leg.

The berthing master at Yarmouth kindly lent us a bit of quay wall to grab some ice creams to sustain us for the long trip back to Lymington and the hard work of recovering the boats. After recovering the boats it was time to celebrate Steven H’s birthday and a chocolate cake arrived from nowhere for all to munch on.

All in all it was great to get back on the Solent after nearly a 3 year absence and we'll be back again soon!