Knocking about in Keyhaven

After leaving Wales we made our way towards our friend’s house in the Solent.  We first stopped at the White Horse near Trowbridge, one of several White Hourses etched into the chalk cliffs around England.  When we got close though, we saw that although on a chalk cliff, this White Horse was really painted concrete – very disappointing.

The White (concrete) Horse near Trowbridge

Moving southwards we stopped at Hengisbury Head.  This is a delightful spit of land between Bournemouth and Mudeford in Dorset lined with over 300 privately owned beach huts.  They look wonderful for a beach holiday, very compact and cosy, but apparently cost a packet to buy and rent.

Hengisbury Head with beach shacks in the background

Then we went onto the Solent area to visit our friend, Tazeena, who at 80+ is the most remarkable woman.  Since we last saw her in April at Marmaris she has done some solo sailing along the Turkish Coast, went sailing with friends up the Caledonia Canal in Scotland enduring gale force winds and rain, helped to organise and host her niece's wedding with the reception at her cottage, Faraway, and when we left we had dropped her off at the train station as she was on her way back to Turkey to help crew for the delivery of a large boat from Turkey to Croatia.  This, of course, was after she had spent last November to February touring around South America in the back of a truck!  Such activity would exhaust those half her age and although she does say she is tired, she keeps going.

While we were there one of the chores on her list (she is renowned for having list of things for people to do when they visit) was to get her 12 ft scow from its mooring.  This entailed taking the trolley down the country lane to the little Key Haven harbour, dragging the dinghy across the beach, rowing out to the moored scow, rowing back to shore towing the scow, lifting the scow onto the trolley then dragging it back down the country lane to Faraway Cottage.  The next day we scrubbed the boat, flipped her over to clean all the barnacles off her and stored her on tyres for the next few months.  The whole time Tazeena was helping with the lifting and scrubbing. She is a remarkable woman, who I feel very privileged to have as a friend.

Scows racing in Lymington

Keyhaven Yacht club

While in the Solent we wanted to take advantage of the many chandleries in the area to get some things for Songster.  In particular we wanted to purchase two snap shackle snatch blocks (try saying that quickly after a G&T or two!) for our spinnaker pole.  Tazeena drove us into the town of Lymington to the Force Four Chandlery.  I think she thought that by driving us she could control the time Bob spent in the chandlery.  Bob was in heaven looking at all the boat things and there was no moving him.  So Tazeena and I went for some coffee and left him to it.  When we returned 45 minutes later, Bob had only been through about a third of the shop but we had to curtail his exploration with a promise we would come back later.

The quay at Lymington

Back we went to Faraway in Keyhaven to work through the ‘to do’ list.  After we finished our Tazeena chores we were released and rode her bikes to another chandlery in Lymington.  (Yes, she still rides her bike around the village.)  The bike ride along the marshes was delightful.  Nothing beats riding along an English country lane on a sunny summer’s day.  After an hour browsing it was back to Faraway to stack canoes and prepare for dinner.

The bikes chained to an anchor

The Keyhaven local - we had a great lunch there

The next day we headed back to London dropping Tazeena at the railway station on her way to meet up with the rest of the crew for the delivery trip from Turkey to Croatia.   It was a great visit and we look forward to seeing her again in Bozburum at the Cruising Association get together.