England's Naval Glory Pt 2.

A few more shots from my cruise with my dad earlier this month.  

Two shots of Portchester Castle in the gloom on May 3rd, a Norman Castle based on a Roman Saxon Shore fort.  And still looking damn good for her age! And well worth a poke around - again I didn't get there this time but have been twice in the past.  The first time led to one of those great questions from 5 year olds.  "Dad who were the pirates that the Romans built the castle to keep out?"  "Uh, that would be us."

Portchester served as an departure point for many medieval English campaigns in France, most notably Henry V left for Agincourt from Portchester.   Please note that the photographer was not drunk, but was working on a moving platform.  You try taking photos from a 33 ft boat underway.

On Satruday May 3rd, we had bright sunshine and motored from Port Solent to Cowes.  We would have sailed but when we tried to set the Jib on Friday it all went pear shaped and it looked like we had some serious rigging woes to sort out.  FYI in case you hadn't figured it out this was BlogCon day.  While the others were off in York gaming away I was on the briny blue (or grey in this case) spending time with my dad.

Lock at Port Solent

No naval history at all here, but I thought this might be of interest.  Given the range of tides at Port Solent, the marina has a lock at the entrance so that the marina can be a constant depth.  This shows six boats ahead of us waiting for the water level to go down so that we can leave the marina.  There was another boat to our starboard and two more astern of us.

HMS Warrior from another angle and in bright sunshine this time.  The Mary Rose is nearby.

Bank Holiday Saturday traffic, Solent edition.  A one of yachts leaves Portsmouth for points unknown

  

The skipper takes the helm leaving Portsmouth harbour (Ft Monkton in the background).  FYI I took the helm for most of our trip but yielded to the man in charge in tight places.