Dawn breaks, breathlessly pink. The sky mirrored in the hushed stillness of the river.
Two egrets preen companionably on the bank, peering into looking glass water.
Stargazer too studies her reflection. She nuzzles her mooring buoy as the tide stirs invisibly beneath her.
A Curlew pipes reveille. The ringing call echoes across the salt marsh...
...disturbing a Redshank. He hurries down the bank, to see what all the commotion is about.
It is our signal to leave the Beaulieu River. I eat brunch and let slip the mooring. We make our way downstream....
....past the Sunday lunch time picnickers on Bucklers Hard...
...and on to the dogleg river mouth, set about with sculptural scotch pines.
18-20 knots of westerly breeze ruffles the Solent. I tuck two reefs in the main. Stargazer puts her shoulder to the wind over tide chop - and slices her way upwind in long, shore to shore, boards
We stand close in to Yarmouth's homely red tiled roofs, stone built walls and tall chimneys - before tacking off the harbour mouth.
The tide is fully making now, urging us on. The evening sun deepens the blue of the sea, warms the red stripes of the lighthouse, and douses the Needles in golden mead.
On we tack into the sunset - homeward bound across Poole Bay. Our wind stays true into a cloudless, moonless, night. It carries us to anchor in Blood Alley. There we lie snug beneath a cape of darkest blue velvet, richly jewelled with myriad stars.
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