Woke up to a bright day but a strong wind and more forecast. We didn’t want to stay another night at Marchwood so we decided to set sail anyway. We headed back up stream just to hoist the mainsail with two reefs and bore away down Southampton Water on a run and a very broad reach. By the time we were near Fawley refinery the wind was gusting at over 30 knots (force 7). Harvard was going really well and we even unrolled a little bit of genoa just to keep our speed up in the lulls and avoid a big container ship just after the Calshot Spit buoy. We had planned to head down the western Solent but although we would have had the tide with us it would have been hard on the wind and hard work so we headed for Cowes, dodged another ship, and were soon in the shelter of the Medina.
Once in the Medina it was a lot calmer and we motored up to the Folly Reach pontoons and decided the wind was stronger than the tide so moored up head to wind which turned out to be the right decision. Tidied up the sails and put everything away and had a quiet afternoon reading and listening to the radio.
