20th July: Sidmouth & Lyme Bay
The Solent Radio Controlled Model Boat Club had been offered a free model yacht and I drove down to Sidmouth to collect it. Reaching Lyme Regis during the drive down I suddenly had trouble with one eye hurting and weeping, and one nostril running! I’d only once previously suffered this (at Lepe on 21st June this year), but that time it was the other eye! Fortunately, after that experience I had bought some sterile water sachets, to replace those I’d used from the Stone Point First Aid box, and I had some in the car. I was able to wash out the afflicted eye and after walking the Promenade for a while my eye had recovered and I was able to continue.
I think it must be some form of hay-fever. The woman who was kindly donating the model yacht, also suffered from hay-fever and gave me an anti-histamine tablet… I’ve since bought a pack but, of course, have not had a recurrence! An unexpected benefit from the trip was that I was also given some Admiralty Charts. They are out of date but still fascinating to look at, my chart table at home is starting to be well stocked!
Sidmouth looked a lovely town nestled in a break in the red Devon cliffs. On the way back I called in at the NCI station at Charmouth, a tiny Lookout dating back to around 1804 and the Napoleonic wars, which looks out towards Lyme Regis to the west. It is a satellite station of NCI Lyme Regis which I also visited at Hive Beach, Burton Bradstock. The station is only slight larger than that at Charmouth, it makes me realise how lucky we are to have the much larger Stone Point unit. On the other hand when I visited NCI Lyme Bay they had only one vessel in sight. Calshot Tower and Stone Point are so much busier.