POOH BEAR REPORT - 08 Aug 2002 Across the South Coast of England - Part 2 Eastbourne and Brighton, England, June 2002 Eastbourne Eastbourne we knew little about, making it quite a surprise. The harbour, the entrance and the community are all new and purpose built. With no natural habour, entry is behind two curving breakwaters into modern new dual locks that can be transited at any state of the tide. I missed it, but Judy says the lock controls room looks like a space launch facility complete with multiple video cameras, computers and an impressive lock control console. The marina is spotless with plenty of power and water points. The showers were the most posh we have seen in this part of the world. They did have one feature we found very strange, but have since seen several times; no pressure adjustment, just full on or full off. We walked to a restaurant in the nearby community and had a very good meal, then sacked out early. Fair winds and weather were called for the next day so we planned an early start for Brighton. While preparing to get underway, we met a young couple on a nearby boat, Richard and Christine, sailing Hotspur. We had only little time to visit then, but Hotspur was berthed next to Pooh in Brighton and again we were to run into them in Gosport. Brighton And between Eastbourne and Brighton we did sail for a change. A beautiful day with a moderate SE wind carried us, and several other boats, all the way to Brighton without turning on the engine. We had seen Brighton by car with Richard and Diana so we pretty well know what to expect. Even more so than Ramsgate, the marina looks shockingly like a prison; kind of a shabby prison at that. In spite of some very bad press in one of the sailing magazines, the marina personnel were great and directed us to a slip where Richard and Diana met us. And to our surprise David Holden sailed in on a 31 footer name Skeetwell. David owns Swale Electronics in Queenborough where we bough our new autopilot. At that time he told me that two years ago had cruised to the Baltic single-handed. And this year he planned to sail single-handed around the British Isles. As part of that he was going to take in the Classic Malts Cruise (more about that in another report). Of course, that has been a major part of our plans in Scotland and the reason we were pushing so hard to get to Ireland, then Scotland. I had my doubts that he really knew what he was talking about and we discussed it no further. A few days before our arrival in Brighton, David had sent us a text message via cell phone (a mobile in England) inquiring as to how the autopilot was doing and telling us he was on his way. Nevertheless, we had not expected to see him. While on the subject of the autopilot, I must say we were very fortunate that our old one failed when it did forcing us to buy the "new and improved" one. So far we seldom have been able to use the Monitor wind vane save between Eastbourne and Gosport (the prop wash disturbs the water paddle when motoring or motor-sailing). As a result we have used the new Raymarine autopilot almost 95% of the time underway, at times in terrible conditions where the old autopilot could not have possibly coped. Except for the fact that we had been unable to find any calm, open water, where we could calibrate it, it had been most satisfactory. Add some of its bells and whistles like the flux gate compass display and GPS waypoint information display in the cockpit, and we consider it superb addition. In the slip in Brighton Marina, all five of us had drinks aboard Pooh Bear. David then returned to his boat for some much needed sleep while we went out with Richard and Diana for a nice meal. Their generous invitation to spend the night at their home was terribly tempting, but it looked like sailing weather coming up so we declined (with lots of regrets). It was a good decision as we did sail the next morning. And to catch a fair current we left at 0500. We weren't the first boat out heading westbound. The Brits do get up early to sail. End of Part 2. Part 3 will follow. Bob & Judy (aboard s/v Pooh Bear moored in Tobermory, Isle of Mull, Scotland)