Days 5 and 6. Itchenor to Eastbourne to Dover

My apologies to those of you who have been logging on and not finding a daily
blog. We've had a couple of long days and the idea of getting the computer out
and being interesting and witty is is a long way from my mind when we arrive
somewhere wet and knackered at 9.30 in the evening.Also sorry for the lack f phots. Al Byd was ships photgrapher for the week and
when it came to downlading his camera to my lappy last night before he left the
computer didn't see the camera. So he's going to email the interesting ones to me
for later publication.We had a good wednesday evening in Itchenor. My brother Simon came and had a meal
in the pub with us at The Ship Inn. The meal was generously provided by the boss
Silas and the lovely Jenna provided copious ale. We also had a visit from the
lifeboat crews from Hayling Island who were on excercise that evening. Both the
ILB and the Atlantic class RIB crews made the effort to come up from the lifeboat
house and came alongside the boat and stayed for a chat which was really nice of
them especially as they gave us a bottle of wine to help forward our efforts. It
was good to see you guys and it made us all feel that our efforts are being
appreciated.We slipped from Itchenor at 9am with a forecast of force 5 to 6 becoming 7 later.
I thought this was alright as we would be going downwind. As we crossed
Chichester Bar there was a gale warning on the VHF with F8 expected within 6
hours. It was decided to carry on as we would be near Eastbourne when it hit. As
we rounded Beachy Head the vis dropped, it started raining, the wind got up to 25
to 30 kn and the sea started to get bigger. I had to call a merchantman on the
radio who was overtaking us on our port side just when we needed to turn to port.
The nice Russian captain duly obliged and altered course to pass us astern. We
got into the lee of Beachy Head so the sea settled down a bit and we broad
reached up to Eastbourne. We had however put up the main with 2 reefs earlier
which proved to be a mistake as it was a complete bitch to get down and pack in a
big sea with a huge gust of 40 knots as we were doing it. We arrived safely in
the marina at Eastbourne at 2130 to a well deserved burger from Chez Caskey and a
couple of pints in the local pub served by a very well endowed barmaid. I
personally didn't notice but the others did!Friday morning dawned bright but still blowing a hooly. The forecast was for the
wind to drop later so we did some jobs around the boat and left at midday. Half
an hour out I realised I'd made a bad call and should have stayed in but by this
time it was too late - going back straight into the wind was not an option. So we
hung on and had the most scary and exhilirating ride through my and the others
first full gale. We were pooped once by a wave breaking into the cock pit which
filled Petes cup of tea with sea and took away the bottle of ready mixed outboard
fuel. It was decided we would run for Folkstone as it at least has a sea wall we
could hide behind but very little else as the port is no longer used
commercially. When we got there we found it almost impossible to tie up by the
wall due to the swell coming round the end of jetty so we put the hook down, had
a cup of tea and half an hours break and decided to carry on the last 6 miles to
Dover. By this time the wind and sea had calmed a little and we had a good run
into the marina arriving at 20.00, relieved and feeling rather proud of ourselves
and even prouder of Gamaldansk who had performed flawlessly. What a great boat
she is!We are now sitting in The Flagship, a pub and cafe right by the marina, owned by
Dave, a top geezah, who entertained us to supper and beer last night and
breakfast and internet this morning. Thanks Dave. Jon Bray has come down from
Tonbridge Wells on his bike to say hello and drink tea. He'll be joining us in
Scotland.We lost Ian and Al last night - it's been a great week with them - and Pete and I
have a lazy 15 miles to do to Ramsgate this afternoon in beautiful sailing
conditions, where we will meet Dave and Patrick for the next legs up to Wells in
Norfolk