I spent two nights in Swanage, it was nice there. I went ashore, saw the sights and returned with fish and chips. I caught a few mackerel too.
I headed to Poole harbour today to escape some big storms over the next two days. First I tried an anchorage South of Brownsea island but its very silted up over that side, I grounded twice, I deliberately came in on a rising tide so the first time I waited 10 minutes and I was free, the second time I waited 20 minutes with no sign of coming off. I took the anchor to the back of the boat and dropped it, then back to the winch and that pulled me off the muddy bottom toward the channel. My depth sounder alarm went off both times as I hit the bottom, I think I need to look at the calibration because I want an alarm before I bottom, not as I hit the dirt. I wasn’t going to try that again so made my way back to the North of the harbour and booked into an expensive marina. Do cheap ones exist?
Poole is really nice, lots of small traditional shops and LOTS of pubs. Much of it is pedestrianised, the last time i was here many many years ago it was traffic mayhem. The RNLI have a training college here.
