Portishead Cruising Club Rally 18th July

[Viv]

Vince and I went over to the Portishead Cruising Club rally last Saturday, locking out at 13.00. We had a good sail over, with a nice wind for a change, only putting the engine on about 1.5 miles from Portishead Marina - at which point we decided that we should have left Cardiff a bit earlier because we were not going to make it into the Avon before the tide turned. We were in need of deisel anyway, so we locked in to Portishead Marina about 16.15.

Windsurfing from Portishead Sailing Club (just before Portishead Point if you#ve never noticed the place.) The guy was flying!

[Viv]

Having got sorted out in the Marina, just had time for a quick beer before getting the courtesy shuttle bus arranged by PCC to take us over to Pill. Neither of us have been to Pill village before - what a lovely little place. The club is situated on what you might call the village green, in front of the pub! Very handy I should think!


We were given a warm welcome at the club.
A "ferry service" had been arranged for visitors who had chosen to anchor in the river.

I have to admit that I did not know that you can anchor in the river, but obviously it is OK - although I think I would like a floodlight on our boat - not just an anchor light! Especially after a night on the beer and the possibility of oversleeping in the morning!

Barebones at anchor

[Viv]

The evening's entertainment consisted of a lovely barbecue meal for £5.00 per head - all home made stuff done by the good volunteers (presumably ladies!) - chicken, burgers (possibly home made they were so tasty!) and sausages, together with a lovely selection of salads, then followed by desserts! I am told (and I did see) bread and butter pudding and some others - but being ever watchful of the waistline (expanding) I abstained.

[Viv]

Coming ashore from the ferry boat

Boats in the pill

[Viv]

Later there was a disco in the club bar, and on the village green there were some "fire dancing performers" - here are another couple of my rubbish videos!


AT the end of the evening, after a very good time was had by all, there was a courtesy bus back to Portishead Marine

[Viv]

When we arrived back at Alana, never knowing when to stop, we invited the skipper of a neighbouring boat on board, purely because he was playing some really good music on his boat, and had earlier been playing the Stones Steel Wheels. So to the strains of my favourite music we proceeded to down another gallon! Having booked the final lock out of the morning at 08.30, Vince shook me awake at 08.00 and it was amad rush to get organised and off the mooring for the lock! The wind had really got up during the night, and on our exit from the lock into the channel we were confronted with horrid conditions. Strong wind and the waves were HUGE! We only have a little hand held wind gauge thing called Windy and on our trip back to Cardiff we were recording winds mostly of around 22 knots, with gusts getting up to 33 knots! Naturally, it was wind over tide, so it was a real roller-coaster ride, in a washing machine! We've never really had much of a decent trip back from Bristol way, but these certainly were the biggest waves we've encountered so far.
So there we are then, the end of another little trip.

[ishtar]

I love reading these. We passed PCC on the way to Bristol, IIRC. I think I took some pics. I'll have a look.

33 knots and wind over tide! Braver than me.