Well I think I will answer my own question and share my experience from today which was not good at all
We got to Minster Leas around 4 hours before high tide today. The sea was calm and I studied the area. There is a steep concrete slip with a shingle beach below it. We set the SIB up and took it down the slip and across the shingle on launch wheels to the water edge then carried the outboard down. We launched 3 hours before high tide which was easy and we headed East once we were outside the buoy channel.
With little warning, we started to see sea fog drifting towards land ahead of us. I contemplated turning around but thought I would continue a little more as it didn't seem too dense. Then very quickly we were surrounded by fog and we lost sight of pretty much everything around us. Luckily I have the Navionics app on my phone so I used this navigate back to the Cheney Rock Cardinel and then back to Bartons Point to find the buoy channel we launched from. We then hung around for half hour for the fog to clear.
After the fog cleared we headed back out East towards Leysdown-on-Sea where by now the wind had picked up to around Force 3. We were heading straight into the wind therefore the journey round was slow as the wife struggled to handle the SIB taking off over waves
. We got to around 1 mile from Leysdown where in the distance we saw the sea fog rolling back in and decided to turn around and call it a day.
We returned back to Minster Leas in a fraction of the time. However this is where the day turned into a bit of a disaster. We headed up the buoy channel to a see a bunch of jet skiers were taking up the whole landing area. I did a few circles in the buoy channel as a way of flashing to them that I was trying to land. They eventually made a clearing but this wasn't due to any concern for me trying to land. We inched closer to the shore and I was busy keeping my eye on a child in the water. We got close to the beach and I pulled the kill cord to cut the engine. All of a sudden a wave caught the back of the boat and slammed us into the shingle. After this there was a panic as I jumped out and helped the wife out then pushed the SIB away from the shingle. By now we had a boat full of water and everything was soaked. I quickly put the wheels on and pushed the SIB out of the water as far as I could to retrieve the engine. By now the waves were pummelling the SIB across the shingle so I released all air valves and dragged it out of the water.
After returning home I checked the boat over expecting a puncture but I didn't find one scratch. I am astonished at the robustness of these things as our SIB was filled with water and being dragged across shingle by waves for at least 10 minutes whilst we were frantically taking it down.
Going forward I am only going to launch from sheltered sites on proper slips. and I'm only going to beach up if the sea is calm. I did a Power Boat level 2 course last year but this doesn't cover sea fog nor landing in choppy conditions. I guess anything after PBL2 is the learning curve. It's certainly not complete a course, buy a boat and off you go.
I don't plan on launching off Minster any time soon
)
