You lot really are barking mad
Thanks for the info re Itchener Chris - really useful and we lauched there today.
We had a really cracking first trip out - launched with no probelm at all - we timed it for low tide so not so shallow. Checked everything was working and set off towards Chichester Bar.
Cheated slightly and followed a larger boat out but meant we could concentrate on our new toy and less on the markers
Found ourselves out of the Harbour and into more interesting water
Perhaps not the calmest of seas - I would say a fairly large swell (for a newbie!!) with wave height about 1m plus (looked about 15m!!)- got totally soaked - surfed back in - now that is an interesting feeling - will have to ask for further advice on how to best handle a boat in surfing waves.
Then back out again just building confidence in the RIB and us - stopped for about 20 minutes and caught no fish!!!
Then played for a bit longer - waves seemd to be increasing as did the wind. At one point Darren (hubby) went airborn, landed on a full can of coke which he promtly flattened, then went through the anchor box lid!!. - So we have a slight repair to do now!!
Once finally soaked and rather cold we headed back in, letting the monster son take a turn - only to end up "ploughing" our way through some rather unexpected shallows!!!(as we were not looking at the markers lesson learnt!!) - no harm done as we were only pottering a 4kn - thank God, RIB seemed to take it all in her stride and almost seemed to have an air of looking after us rather than the other way around.
So at the end of a very exciting first day - we have a truly fantastic RIB and at no point did I feel we were asking her to do anything that felt unsafe - and we clearly have lots of growing and learning to do.
Once again thank you all for the advice, help and guidance it's very much appreciated
Jxx
Cait
