August 28th 2008 It rained most of the night so there was no hurry to get up but by the time we had had breakfast the sun was out and the clouds were skittering eastwards. We motored out into the channel at around 1100 and turned south to enjoy a fast reach under reefed main and genoa. When the lead later turned to the south west we changed down to the staysail and tacked our way into a brisk westerly with true wind gusting up to 35 knots. Michael cheerfully helmed all of the way despite being assaulted by the odd blast of wind driven Baltic.
We had been pushing into the steadily mounting gusts for a couple of hours with water up to the saloon window when we checked the weather forecast to find that there was, indeed, a gale forecast. Always happy to retreat in the face of adversity we dodged into the comfortable shelter of Rano which had in it only one other yacht. Rather different to our previous visit in early July when there was a small armada there.
Log distance 25 miles