Due to a spot of bother with diesel bug off Lands End a year ago, we so never made it to the Scillies on the tour round the UK. This year we are trying again and also hope to include a few of the harbours in the South West which we have not been into before.

The summer so far has been hot and sunny with plenty of easterlies to drive us westwards. We haven’t been able to go earlier due to a combination of other events including poor family planning by daughters who give both Chris and John as well as Yee Tak and James beautiful granddaughters, as well as previously booked holidays and nephew’s exams etc… Our trip is broadly planned for around the 7^th to 28^th August or so and true to form, the weather finally breaks on the preceding weekend. Wind in the traditional SW and some general nastiness create some initial doubts, but we are made of sterner stuff and have done Orkney so what could go wrong?

Tuesday is leaving day but as we motor down the Lymington river the boat is sluggish and wont go above about 1500 revs compared to the usual max of 2500. We try the usual tricks of going forward and astern to remove what we suppose is a piece of rope or plastic, but without success. We debate the options of drying out to see what the problem is, but end up booking a lift out at the marina as they can squeeze us in and we can hopefully get going the next day. While we are waiting we change the diesel filters just in case the dreaded bug is back, but all seems fine so far….touch wood.

As Heydays is lifted out, the problem is clear…we have some incredibly severe fouling on the propeller.

The yard get as much slime and grunge off Heydays as possible with the power washer, then after that it is scrapers and wire brushes to get the prop shiny and new again. As always there is lots of divided opinion about what to do with props. Some swear by propspeed (as did we) but at £150 a pop (prop!) for a coating that lasts just two years its seems on the excessive side…and no-one locally has it anyway. Others recommend lanolin, but we are fresh out of local greasy sheep and so we opt for the simplest…shine it up and then dry out a couple of times a season to shine again.

Back in the water and £150 worse off, Heydays scoots along at 6 knots with just 1500 revs and a top speed over 7.

Another pub meal (in John and Chris’s local, The Smugglers in Milford on Sea) and we resolve to make an early start in the morning.

Wednesday 8^th August…Lymington to Weymouth

Oddly, given its proximity, none of us has ever sailed into Weymouth. We slip our lines in Lymington to catch the morning tide west and motor off down river into a gloomy sky with a light SW wind. By the time we are abeam of the Shingles bank there is a steady drizzle and we motor sail with just a main to supplement a very flukey wind and to give us a reasonable course in a vaguely westerly direction. By mid-morning however, the sun is out and there is a bit more wind, albeit still on the nose. We tack in towards Swanage and then by midday we have a good stiff F4 or 5. We tack out past Old Harry Rocks and St Albans with a couple of reefs in the main and a reduced genny. We follow the wind shifts past Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove and gradually start to believe once more that the huge lump of Portland really is joined to the mainland!

We close the shore and the fading grandeur of Weymouth and the promenade are left astern and we head for the new Weymouth Eye which sits uncomfortably close to the fine old bandstand…

Weymouth is rammed both on the water and ashore but the harbour crew are incredibly helpful (if slightly disorganised). We moor up next to the funfair on the quay and soon another boat rafts up next to us with a couple of seemingly inexperienced sailors. We get all our lines eventually snug and sorted…and then another boat comes in. It turns out they want to stay for two days, while we will be making an earlyish start and so once more we untie all our lines and dutifully trundle up and down the rive while they get sorted. Eventually the three boats are in the right order of leaving and we settle in for an evening in Weymouth.  Weymouth round the harbour and away from the usual chains in the high street is charming. The old tramway in the road to the old ferry and cargo dock is still there and useable, but with the ferries all gone it is just another sad reminder of what Weymouth once was …or perhaps still could be. The crowds don’t suit us however and John is shouted at for not jumping into the road while two ladies and a man with pushchair take up the whole pavement… Dinner however with our friends Nigel and Sue who have come down to say hello, is lovely at a great fish restaurant called les Enfants Terrible. John gets shouted at again, but this time it is a friend (Connor) who is moored up on a boat a short distance away. After some wine and the odd rum back on board, even the funfair doesn’t stop us sleeping.

At first we weren’t sure whether to continue the blog, but our loyal reader and our failing memories have convinced us to carry on for a bit, even though our sailing this year is likely to be rather more sedate than our voyage round the UK over the last couple of years.

With Heydays back in Lymington we have a chance to create a sort of normality after the last two years of being anywhere except our ‘home’ port. With our previous boats, we had spent happy days trundling around the Solent and Poole with occasional forays across to France and the Chanel Islands. The longer trips in boats with a cruising speed of around 4kts made for some long passages and all too frequently we were crossing busy shipping lanes in fog with no radar. We are looking forward to some slightly more luxurious and relaxed trips around our old haunts with the benefit of being able to see what might be bearing down on us in the fog.

So…nothing spectacular, but hopefully some nice pictures of mud and sunsets. We decided to keep Heydays afloat over winter and try to catch some of the crisp clear winter days with no one else out on the water.

In the event…perhaps inevitably, crisp clear days are few and far between. A pre-Christmas trip over to Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight is a foggy windless trip, but at least the crab sandwich lives up to expectations.

Now we are on a river mooring without the benefit of walk-ashore pontoons, we treat ourselves to a new tender together with an electric outboard motor. Hopefully we can get to Heydays with mostly dry feet. This is the price we pay for not paying Lymington marina prices…we have certainly been spoilt around the rest of the country (with a few exceptions) where sailing is not solely the preserve of corporate tax breaks and well-heeled county types.

January and February pass with less than a handful of trips to Heydays just to make sure she is alright. This is not quite what we had in mind. Our first venture out is just a ‘shake-down’ to blow the cobwebs away and consists of just a few tacks up the Solent and back. Still, its nice to be back on the water. John and I manage a night away in Newtown Creek just to check that the anchor is still working…and that the New Inn is still there. A boat is aground in the entrance to the creek having misjudged the sand, there but for the grace of god etc.

The pub is doing a steak night for two, but sadly John is with a veggie. The promise to take the extra one home turns out to mean in his tummy. On the way back in the dark in the tender, the outboard decides that it can no longer run on just fumes and gives up the ghost. By the time we have refuelled (without a proper spout) we are i) liberally doused in petrol and ii) completely at a loss as to where the boat is, even with a couple of good torches. John has a compass in his watch and we feel our way slowly back. This is a salutary lesson on how easy a casual trip back from the pub can turn into a potentially dangerous situation on an ebb tide with little chance of rowing against it.

The morning brings a glassy stillness to the creek and we enjoy the solitude before the summer hordes arrive in their own bits of expensive floating plastic…

An oystercatcher and a few seals lazing on the mash look completely disinterested as we practice a few tight manoeuvres going round in circles backwards.

We slip away mid morning and leave the seals to their peace and quiet. All this just a stone’s throw from Lymington and Southampton…

Our next mini cruise takes us up to The Folley Inn which is halfway up the river from Cowes to Newport. There are only a few boats out at this stage of the season and unusually we have a pick of the river moorings and pontoons. The Folley usually gets very crowded and in the high season it all becomes a bit of a boat scrum…best avoided. It has special memories for John as we hired a boat plus skipper for his stag weekend and after some brisk sailing we fetched up at the inn on a Saturday night in August…along with quite a lot of other boatsful. The evening ends with most of the women in the pub plus John dancing on the tables. This is a regular occurrence it seems as there are several notices disclaiming responsibility for people falling off…and very many stiletto marks on the table tops. John refrains from dancing this time. No (cheap) pictures exist of this moment…

The morning is brisk and bright and clear and we have a lovely early-morning sail down to Lymington to pick up Chris. There are a few early bait diggers out …

…and we are reminded that Cowes was once a half decent ship-building town…

 

Yee Tak pretends to be gazing steely-eyed into the ocean, but in reality she is only thinking of food…

With a light easterly wind we have a very gentle run over to Poole in company with a few other boats and then debate with ourselves whether to attempt the inshore passage, the East Looe channel or the more cautious option of the main channel past Studland.

Caution wins out…and the other boats follow us on the same track. We wonder if they would have followed us wherever, on the assumption that we were locals. It reminds us of the maybe mythical stories of sailors following the wrong ferries over to France and then wondering why St Malo looks uncannily like Cherbourg.

On a falling tide we inch our way to a convenient mooring buoy near to the Shell Bay Restaurant. In double quick time we are in the dinghy and heading towards some fine seafood and the odd glass of wine…just to be sociable.

The sunset is glorious over the harbour and slips down behind Furzey Island in a wonderful final blaze of oranges and fiery reds. The famous green flash does not appear this time.

As the final light goes Chris and Yee Tak are singing merrily in the dinghy back to Heydays. Only the clanking of the chain ferry disturbs the perfect peace…and the odd clanking of rum bottles.

As adventures go this is relatively tame, but that doesn’t detract from the sheer joy of waking up in such beautiful surroundings. As the first of the tourist boats around Brownsea get under way, we breakfast and decide to just meander around the western areas of the harbour. The depths are shallow but one of the joys of a bilge keeler is that we don’t especially fear grounding…just the embarrassment of getting it wrong….or pretending that it was always our intention to scrub her bottom in the middle of the harbour. Yee Tak points us to an old anchoring haunt in South Deep just south of Green Island and we slowly sail along the meandering channel and anchor with a couple of others for lunch.

After a nap in the sun we decide to complete the grand circumnavigation (of Brownsea!) and return to South Deep for an even quieter night at anchor. The depths seem to be less than the charts suggest and we hold our breath trying to make Heydays lighter as we search for the relative deep of the Wych Channel. The oil wells on Furzey are completely hidden and the casual observer would not know that anything special was going on there apart from a few service boats making for the little jetty. The channel north and east of Brownsea is busy and crowded, but soon we are smugly leaving the tourist boats behind once more and heading for our anchorage.

As the tide recedes, Heydays settles snuggly into the mud and we dine with just some walking gulls and the odd oyster catcher for company. It is odd how such beauty and tranquillity is on our doorstep and yet we are often drawn to seek adventure in further flung places.

We need an earlyish start in the morning on the last of the tide to get a favourable stream out of the harbour and to make the tide gate through Hurst Narrows. At 6.30 we calculate we have about an hour left of acceptable depth. Sadly we have picked a rather shallower spot to anchor and Heydays is firmly aground already. We are forced to go back to bed to wait for the tide returning… By 8.30 we are afloat and we motor out against the incoming stream. Less than ideal but once we are out of the harbour we should be able to find some decent stream to help us on our way home. In glorious sunshine we sail within a biscuit throw of the beaches and huts of Sandbanks and Branksome and the wind fills in from the north to give us a superb reach past Bournemouth, Boscombe and Christchurch. Dozens of small fishing boats are anchored off the Shingles bank and we thread our way in along the north channel entering the narrows with about 45 minutes of the flood tide to spare.

 

Sailing to the city…

Our next mini-cruise takes us east with John having an appointment at the hospital in Southampton. The day is overcast and breezy and we are wrapped up against the chill of spring in Hampshire. A good south westerly combined with a favourable tide gets us to the entrance to Southampton Water in less than two hours and Heydays is making 6 kts through the water with just a reefed genoa. The water itself is full of commercial boats…the fast cats out of Cowes take no prisoners and the ferries themselves have to give way to the enormous (and hugely ugly) bulk car transporters which pick their way carefully round the Bramble Bank with the attendant pilot boats keeping everyone else at a respectful 100m distance. Pictures here are just grey on grey…

Even with the wind just forward of the beam, Heydays still makes great progress under just the genoa. The winds are gusting up to 23 kts, but Heydays as always is beautifully balanced and reassuring. We opt to try for Ocean Village Marina on the basis that it is probably more sheltered in a SW breeze and we turn up the Itchen glimpsing the ‘theatre of nightmares’ which is what St Mary’s Stadium has become this season.

A brief nap and we are off to the Harbour Lights Cinema for some nosh and a movie. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society turns out to be a real gem in a classically understated Film 4 way. This is a bit of a luxury, being able to pick up some decent grub and a movie less than 100m from our bed. No-one will accuse Ocean Village of being pretty or even charming, but occasional stays in the heart of a city can be invigorating. With John back on board we set off to visit Bembridge ahead of our joining the Moody Owners Rally there in a week’s time. We want to appear at least halfway competent and we have heard tales of embarrassing encounters with the mud inside the harbour. We would rather not do this with a dozen other boats looking on…we are as shallow at the harbour.

The wind stays in the SW but the predicted 5 occasional 6 turns out to be  a steady 6 with gusts of 7 as we get out of the city and into the open waters. We are creaming down Southampton Water as the rain comes in and the visibility reduces to less than 100m. We stay right on the edge of the channel safe in the knowledge that the big stuff will be well out of our way. Now we are going too fast. We can’t get into Bembridge until 3 hours before high water and at this rate we will be an hour too early, leaving us to chuff around (technical nautical term) in the sea waiting for the tide. We ease the sheets to reduce speed and as the rain clears away we start to catch glimpses of the island through the murk. The pilot book suggests that there is a tide gauge outside the entrance to the harbour, which shows the actual depth across the bar. The old 1867 Palmerston fort of No Man’s Land stands as a grim testament to the days when we apparently didn’t trust the French. Today it is apparently a ‘luxury’ 4 room hotel having got rid of the legionella which closed it in 2005. Leaving it behind, we begin a cautious approach across the Ryde sands being careful not to get in the way of the hovercraft which still ply from Southsea…noisy in the extreme and presumably quick but expensive.

St Helen’s Fort guides us in and we make out the beacon which we presume is the tide gauge. A complete circuit of this rather forlorn stump provides no useful information and we ponder whether to edge our way across the bar to the narrow channel into the harbour. With sails down we inch forward and the depth sounder begins its steady descent. It evens out at 1.7m giving us just 30cm below our keels. Luckily, with a SW wind the sea has not built up any swell so close inshore and gradually the depth rises to a luxurious 2.2m. The channel banks are so steep and the markers so close to the beach that we could have a chat to dog walkers without raising our voices…if any were out in what has become a drizzly and blustery late afternoon. We have our pick of the spaces on the pontoon with just us and two other boats in for the night. The young lad is very helpful but tells us sadly that there is no electricity that day and that the electrician has just gone home.

We settle in for the night and dine on pasta, salad and perhaps a glass of wine or two. Of Bembridge we see nothing, before finally tucking up in bed with the wind now howling through the rigging.

The next day is bright and sunny as we sail out of the harbour on the early morning tide.

The afternoon is promising a return of some gale force winds and rain and so with a couple of reefs in the main we have a wonderful sail past Seaview, Ryde…

…and a few of Queen Vic’s residences (one) plus Cowes…

We have a glorious beat  down the western arm of the Solent making the most of the ebb to get us safely home to Lymington.Our track on the chart shows us pleasingly tacking through just 90 degrees…but we are helped by a good 1.5 kts of tide! By 10.30 we are back on our mooring and breakfasting smugly having had a great sail before some people are even up.

Having ‘sussed’ Bembridge previously we spend a happy few days polishing and buffing (the boat) before our first outing with the MOA. We leave slightly later than planned due to some urgent domestic stuff and motor sail east once more in light winds and glorious sunshine. While most boats will be arriving on Saturday, we take advantage of being able to get in early on the Friday. In the event, the marina is already crowded with two rallies plus the usual crowds expected for a sunny bank holiday weekend. The harbour takes on a completely different form in sunshine and the contrast with a week previously could not be more stark. We raft up next to Dave and Jenny in their immaculate Moody 36 and are glad that we applied a bit of spit, polish and pressure wash to Heydays…she has scrubbed up reasonably well. With a dozen hands taking lines we are soon moored and enjoying not only the very warm welcome from everyone including Sue and Ian who have organised the rally, but also have some gin and tonic with a twist of lemon before our evening meal on board of tapasy stuff.

Saturday sees us breakfasting at the little marina café where an enterprising couple have set up fresh coffee and bacon and egg baps in an ex shipping container. It’s a tough life. it is also fascinating to see Bembridge with no water…

We take the opportunity of a free day (no organised activities until the evening!!!) to look around Bembridge itself and having chatted to a few other owners, we take ourselves off on the little ferry which drops us on the beach.

The little village is very pretty although busy with cars and cyclists (there is really only one main road around the island). On the way back we get the ferry to drop us at the Crab House for lunch while a fleet of brightly coloured sails drift slowly past on the tide…wonderful.

By the time we get back to Heydays, we are in the middle of a gigantic floating raft of plastic. With two inside and three outside including both in front and behind we couldn’t get out if we wanted to. Not sure about all this intimacy. We like the sun but kind of preferred it when we had the place to ourselves.

The evening consists of a BBQ which turns out to be a bit of a free for all as we bring our own food to cook, but we have brought plenty of booze so time passes until the quiz. We don’t come last is the best we can say, but failed miserably in our knowledge of the Isle of Wight. We sit out in the cockpit for the rest of the evening with the merry clink of glasses chiming with the retiring seagulls.

Sunday is a stroll around the harbour with everyone else for lunch at the sailing club…we are on our best behaviour and manage to scrub up OK. This is not really our ‘thing’ but pleasant enough. On the way back we explore a bit more of the dunes and beaches…would be great to bring the grandchildren here one sunny day.

Some boats leave on Sunday but we stay to catch the Monday afternoon tide. Lunch in the pub is good enough but James is trying hard not to look at the football on the big screen….Saints are rubbish this season and we need a win away at Everton to avoid relegation…mustn’t let it spoil the weekend…

The sail back has light winds from the East and we get our cruising chute out for the very first time. After a lot of fiddling and playing with bits of string, we get it flying. Heydays responds as always….with gentle puffs sending us surging along past Cowes and back up ‘our’ bit of the Solent.

We are chased up the Lymington river by the returning fleet of scows but manage to get safely moored before several dozen boats all try to use the slip at once!

A trawl through our log over the last couple of years as we made our way round the UK has thrown up some interesting and also surprising (at least to us) pointers about the nature of our trip…

If anyone reading this wants any more information from our limited perspective, we would be very happy to bore for England talk…

Navigation

We used a combination of navigation aids…

• charts of course… Imray packs seemed to be the most cost effective way of buying, but together with admiralty tide tables and paper almanacs, we spent over £500 on paper charts.
• Raymarine cmap…Heydays has a reasonably old (8 years) Raymarine chart plotter and radar system. The cmap charts for this are not at all cheap and UK coverage with yearly updates cost over £600 for the 2 years. Our blog for October 2015 shows our coming together with a sandbank in the Thames estuary as a result of a 6 month old cmap and 8 month old chart. This resulted in us adding…
• Navionics on both James’ Samsung 7″ tablet and John’s ipad. These have the advantage of being  cheap (approx £30 per year) and updateable wherever we have wifi. This would WITHOUT DOUBT have enabled us to avoid the sandbank which had moved in a winter storm. The small Samsung tablet proved very useful to have directly at the wheel, although the display is at times dull especially in sunlight. The ipad display is ideal, but seemed power hungry and needed an external GPS. The combination of both worked well for us until we have saved enough pennies to renew our old Raymarine.
• We also made use of Reeds of course both on-line and paper, The Cruising Association Almanac (this tended to be rather more cautious and anxiety causing than the others) and several pilot books. East Coast Pilot, the Clyde Cruising Club books (all of them) and the Irish Sea book were all excellent and we made full use of them both for passage planning through races and past headlands as well as entering new harbours.

Distances and times…

We completed a total of  1944 miles over the ground (although some local cruising on the way round took it over 2000!).

We did 45 separate days sailing with a total of 360 hours at sea. Surprisingly, we had the engine running for just over 75% of the time although much of this was motor sailing. At first we were disappointed with such a high ratio, however this included a canal transit and we also made decisions to use the motor to support overall boat speed, to make tide gates and harbour entrances on occasions. We realise (although purists and Joshua Slocum will disagree) that passage making, often with a time pressure, is a very different kind of sailing than we have been used to previously.  Now back home, we will be burning a lot less diesel. Overall we used about 700l of diesel on the trip round.

Also slightly disappointing, was the fact that we only did around 36 hours of sailing in darkness. Some of this is accounted for by the remarkably short (almost non existent at times) ‘nights’ we encountered for much of the time we spent in Scotland and Orkney.

Of the 45 day sails, we spent the majority (35) in marinas, with just 10 nights at anchor or on swinging moorings. On another occasion we would certainly wish to do more anchoring and it is not for the want of information, as Brian and Anne provided us with an amazing array of great anchorages, of which we sadly used only a small fraction. In our defence m’lud, the east coast provided little in the way of safe anchorages with the exception of the Essex and Suffolk rivers in which we anchored on several occasions, but separately from this trip. We made most use of swinging moorings and anchorages in Scotland and the islands, but weather on occasions helped us to decide for more sheltered berths…OK, OK, pubs and restaurants also played a part! As did friends and family wanting to visit, as well as our need to travel back south for various reasons.

Communications…

We carried our main VHF set (mast aerial) as well as two back-up hand held sets. The hand-helds proved to be more useful in close approaches for contact with harbourmasters re moorings, pontoons etc. as we don’t (yet) have a microphone for the main set in the cockpit.

We carried phones between us with three different networks. In general ‘3’ proved very good even for 4G up the East Coast and in Orkney, while Vodafone and O2 were less comprehensive. In West Scotland Vodafone was slightly better although all were fairly poor with 3G at best. We got used to sitting in pubs….just for the wifi!!!

The shipping forecast…

If possible, read this bit of the blog with Sailing By playing in the background…

We used three main sources of weather information;

• the shipping forecast of course. We used the BBC broadcasts as well as listening for coastguard updates, but we found the Marineweather App to be very helpful both for the sea areas and the inshore forecast.
• Navtex. This was OK, but in truth the display is less helpful (to our old git eyes) than the apps. We did not find any occasion where Navtex was the only option.
• Windy App. This we used a lot and is very helpful in tracking fronts and depressions as well as for the direct estimates of wind strength, wave height etc. It is also more useful than the shipping forecast in some respects, as it can zoom in to smaller areas as well as providing some guide for up to 7 days in advance. HOWEVER, our experience showed that it tends to under-estimate the general wind strength. This was not consistent sadly and we became used to continual cross-checking with the shipping forecast. Wind direction seemed to us to be more accurate even at quite local levels.

The I-spy book of shipping forecasts showed that we covered in order…

• Wight, Dover, Thames, Humber, Tyne, Forth, Cromarty, Fair Isle, Hebrides, Malin, Irish Sea, Lundy, Plymouth and Portland. We also used close by areas of Dogger, Forties, Sole and Fitzroy.
• Lyme Regis, Selsey Bill, North Foreland, Gibraltar Point, Whitby, Berwick upon Tweed, Rattray Head, Cape Wrath, Ardnamurchan Point, Mull of Kintyre, Mull of Galloway, Carlingford Loch, Great Orme Head, St Davids Head and Lands End

We’ll never again lie awake at night listening to the sonorous voices reeling off the headlands without still wishing we were there, watching them slip silently past…..

And finally, the link below should take you to a word table of places, times, distances and main events if you are still reading….

UK tour summary

A 5am alarm call… on a Sunday!!!

…and a check of the forecast…

…this has us thinking seriously about moving at all. The 24 hour inshore forecast is suggesting S or SW 4 or 5 occasionally 6 later. That bit is OK and should see us in Poole quite nicely before anything heavier but…the outlook for the following 24 hours is now suggesting that ex hurricane Ophelia may make her presence felt with gales suggested. Our concern is that things change quite quickly and sometimes the forecast winds arrive sooner than expected. A review of the options….stay put in Dartmouth, although this would be wasting the opportunity for a good 12 hours of easting, or head out with some bolt holes available. Lyme Bay has nothing to offer by way of shelter, but once round Portland Bill, Weymouth is a good safe harbour in a blow and Poole itself is also good. Both are down wind to ease any pressure on us and the gear.

In the end, with enough alternatives should the forecast change, we decide to go. We head out down a dark river with the ebb under us, scanning the gloom for moored boats and for the comfort of the Check Stone and Castle Ledge buoys and the ease of open water at night. With a cautious reef in the main and a couple of rolls in the genoa we spot the southerly cardinal marks taking us safely round (yet another) Mewstone and the charmingly titled Shag rock…great birds. After that it’s 80^o  for the next 8 hours or so to Portland Bill. The tidal lift east stays with us slightly longer than we expected and we are averaging well over 6 knots over the ground. Out across Lyme Bay and the land quickly disappears into the lightening haze. The sea is quite lumpy and this increases and shortens as the tide turns against us and the wind. The autohelm is working hard and we once more think about the benefits of installing wind-vane steering. We opt to run a loose watch system and take turns to catch up on some sleep.

The morning trundles on with Heydays scudding through and sometimes surfing down the front of waves. We disturb a flock of gannets who were spending a peaceful Sunday morning bobbing around until we came along. We pass a couple of cargo boats anchored but other than that not another soul although, presumably, plenty of sole…apologies.

We are around 6 miles from the Bill when we suddenly see the unmistakable dorsal fin and once more we are joined, all too briefly, by a pod of common dolphins.

It really does lift the spirits (not that we were down) to have these wonderful creatures for company. As if encouraged by them, the sun comes out (albeit in a watery kind of way) and we finally get sight of the Bill itself. We feel like we have entered the final countdown now with only St Aldhelms Head and Anvil Point left before home. We round the Bill just on slack water with Heydays still making around 5kt despite some easing of the wind.

With the Bill comes some data connectivity and a forecast update. Ophelia is tracking slightly further east and while Ireland will bear the brunt, Portland and Wight both have gales forecast over the next 24 hours. There is no need to run for Weymouth, but thoughts turn to our final leg from Poole to Lymington. A quick calculation and with a favourable tide east for the next 6 hours and a decent wind, we can make the tide gate at Hurst Narrows before it turns foul at 8.30pm. The lure of our home port ahead of the final sting of Ophelia is attractive and we encourage Heydays with a bit of engine to support a slackening wind which is now just around F3. Oddly it comes round to the SE and this was definitely in no forecast we have seen…

With connectivity comes the curse of knowing what else is happening…Yee Tak has taken Chris to see Saints against Newcastle and James’ phone pings irritatingly (can’t bring myself to turn it off…) as Newcastle score. Heydays is now creaming along at 7 or 8 kts through the water and with a favourable tide we pass St Aldhelms and Anvil Point with indecent haste.

Another ping and Saints are level….followed by another ping within the minute and the ‘Toon army are back in front…. The point of sailing is to get away from the anxiety…as they say, it’s the hope that gets you. Once more we are surrounded by haze and we see no sign of the Isle of Wight or Bournemouth as we cross the Dolphin Sands at speed. A final ping settles matters and Saints get a draw…at least Chris saw a good game for her first ever time at a premier league match. Yee Tak is spitting with frustration….

John plots a course in close to the beach and the north passage, instead of the Needles channel which can get very lumpy. It also goes past his flat up on the cliffs… The final sunset on our journey brings mixed emotions and a curious red sun courtesy of dear old Ophelia dragging Sahara dust and Portuguese wild fire debris in our direction.

…elation at an achievement for a couple of old gits, but also a sadness at the end of a chapter and an adventure. We’ll do a final reflective post later…

The haze finally clears and the Needles light is clear as it steers us clear of the Shingles bank.  We make the North Head buoy with about an hour to spare and can just about make out the line of Hurst Spit. We lose the jenny and take the last of the flood through the narrows and in to the warm embrace of the Solent. We can be cavalier with the channel markers, cutting corners with aplomb (hoping that the mud has not moved in the last 2 years) and watching the lights of Lymington drawing us in. 14 hours after leaving Dartmouth we are tied up on the harbour master’s pontoon and we’ll stay the night there before finding out where they will put us for the winter while they dredge our own mooring. Back on dry land we are still swaying around like a couple of drunken sailors…but that bit will come later. The welcoming party will arrive tomorrow, so after a drink or two we tuck up on Heydays for the final night (on this trip).

Dawn brings confirmation that it was the right decision to come straight to Lymington from Dartmouth and it is amazing to wake up in the familiar surroundings of home.

We motor out down river in increasing gloom thanks to Ophelia and are ‘met’ back on the pontoon by Yee Tak and Chris…

 

…there can be no better excuse for fizzy pop at 11 in the morning.

With Heydays out of the water in Plymouth, we take the opportunity to anti-foul her bottom and we even have time to polish her top sides…the decks and coach roof will have to wait though. There is no doubt that after nearly 2 years away from home she is looking a little tired and in need of more detailed attention than we have been able to give her.

However we receive the sad news that John’s Dad passed away early on Tuesday 10^th October. In March with all of us in Orkney, John rushed back to be with him in what doctors thought were to be his last few days. However over the next few months he rallied and John managed to take him out to his favourite pub, The Ferryhouse Inn on the river Tamar, for the occasional pint and meal. We’ll have a wake there after the funeral and toast Roy, looking out over the river and the dockyards at Devonport where he spent so much of his life.

With a domestic and weather window before the funeral, we decide to press on Eastwards with a plan to take us to Dartmouth, Poole and then home. Heydays is lifted back in the water and we slip the mooring just after 11am on Saturday morning. The benefits of a clean bottom and prop are felt immediately as Heydays slips easily through the Sound at 4 knots at only just over 1000 revs. The wind is on the nose as we head south initially, but we look forward to a straightforward beat to Start Point and then a fetch and final run into Dartmouth.

John pilots us out of his boyhood waters with mixed emotions…and a grey sky,

We skim the light at the Western end of the breakwater…

and in clear seas the wind frees and we head for the Mewstone rocks just south of Wembury point with a full set of sails.

With each headland, we make some more easting in the course and by the time we round Bolt Head we are on a fine fetch. The sky lightens and breaks (…”enough blue to make a sailor a pair of trousers” as my grandma used to say) and the green fields of S Devon slip by.

By the time Salcombe is on the beam, the sun is out and although the wind dies to a zephyr we are just happy to be out on the water.

We pass a few floating plastic drink bottles and grumble about the general level of pollution, the future of the planet etc. etc. …how unusual for two old men…With a near flat sea we suddenly realise that we are not looking at drinks bottles at all, but Portuguese men of war (who are doing a very good impression of floating plastic debris). We even see a gull tentatively pecking at the sac. We are not sure if that encounter finally ends in a score draw…

As Start Point comes on the beam the mouth of the Dart, although still 10 miles away, is indicated by a cluster of sails and other boats like bees round the entrance to a hive.

We pick our way up river just as the ebb is starting and with the sun casting longer shadows over the town, we understand why this part of the coast is so popular for tourist and yachties alike.

We even have time to glance back…

On cue, a steam train whistles and chuffs away up the old line. This could be a scene from the fifties….except for the rows of plastic boats now lining the banks instead of fine varnish and canvas…

We choose the town quay for the night as we are allowed to moor there while the ferries are not working from around 5pm to 8.30am. As we plan to be away by 6am there shouldn’t be a problem…except that the ferry is working later today due to demand! There is enough space for all of us but we have to put up with a few returning drunks waiting next to us for the last boat back across the river. We are not at all bothered as we head for the The Royal Castle for a couple of pints and a what turns out to be a great meal. This is slightly spoiled by 1) the price….welcome to the touristy south and 2) the fact that the service charge does not go to the staff at all. After the recent high profile stuff in the news about owners pocketing tips meant for staff, we thought that this would now be a thing of the past. How naïve are we? The prices in the Royal Castle are high enough without them feeling that they can steal from their staff…..grump over. Dartmouth is delightful and we’ll return soon with more time to look around.

We check forecasts and ex-hurricane Ophelia is looking like it will be making its presence felt over the next few days as it tracks north from the Azores. The further east we can make, the easier it will be. There are some gales forecast in Fitzroy, Sole and Plymouth sea areas…all to the west of us but some F5/6  in Portland and Wight. Looks good to go at the moment, but we’ll check in the morning.

 

Who invented alarms at 3.15? This is not the time for sparkling conversation and repartee…we get ourselves ready in an even more cursory fashion than yesterday and soon we are squeaking and rustling around in our wet weather gear with plenty of layers underneath. Just time to make some coffee and neither of us feel like eating…or talking much, at the moment. We can just about pick out the dim outlines of other boats on the river as we make our way downstream and out into the inky blackness of the open sea once more. Some big warships in port have lights blazing and this helps navigation for a while…just the Black Rock to find and avoid now.

St Anthony Head light blazes comfortingly through the drizzly blackness and the silence is only disrupted by their mournful foghorn which we hear for some time even once we are well past. The rain comes and goes and once we are past the headland we set a straight line for Penlee Point and the entrance to Plymouth Sound. With nothing especially challenging (we hope) for the next few hours, we settle into a brief watch routine. We are running just on genny alone and when the showers have passed the visibility is not too bad. The radar suggests a boat about 3 miles away off the starboard beam and they track us steadily for sometime until we finally see their running lights. At first all we can see is a red and a white light but eventually, when we are about 1 mile away we can see the red above white of a fishing boat. Gradually we can make out more of the outline of the boat and can actually see the waves…a feeble dawn is clearly coming albeit without the splendid light show and colours of yesterday. Our patch of sea is suddenly more active…two tugs in line abreast are pushing steadily West and some small fishing boats are pottering around inshore.

James’ turn to grab some sleep and when he pops his head out an hour later, we have already closed Penlee point. From the sea, it is obvious why some are headlands and others are points…Rame head and Penlee Point give us a geography lesson.

John has phoned his friend who lives in some flats at Cawsand Bay and we make a short detour into the bay. We see his torch flashing at us and wave back energetically….while still on the phone!

John has loads of memories of sailing these waters in dinghies nearly 60 years ago and he enthusiastically points out local stuff as he sails Heydays into his boyhood waters. He opts to use his local knowledge and takes us through the short cut on the Cornish side of Drake’s Island.

Back in the sound and a Military Police Launch hurries over to a catamaran which is seemingly oblivious of a huge (and un-named warship) bearing down on him. We keep well out of the way…best not to argue with missiles, guns and torpedoes (and who knows what else…). The man with the gun on the bridge doesn’t wave back!!!

We tie up in the marina with enough time for a fry-up before our scheduled lift out at 12.30. We hope they don’t need to come on board, as second-hand fried breakfasts are not everyone’s idea of subtle fragrances…we even have time to wash up.

Heydays is lifted out and we are disappointed with the amount of slime we have accumulated since we antifouled in April in Scotland. We can hire a pressure washer for 30 quid, but for an extra tenner we can have it done for us…we’ve had enough of getting wet…

Our loss of speed is due to hull fouling after only 6 months but also to some fouling on the prop. Teckky alert…we used Hemple’s Tiger on the hull and it has not performed especially well, but we splashed out on some PropSpeed for the prop 2and a half years ago. It cost nearly 100 notes just for the prop but has worked well until now. The locals don’t do PropSpeed any more and like many commercial boats use a spray-on grease instead…we’ll try that out this time.

More disappointingly, it is clear that the cutlass bearing has failed after only three years and the rope cutter is also beyond repair. Mick from M&G Marine is a gem however and he sources replacements very rapidly. The work won’t be done however until next week, by which time our domestic duties have caught up with us once more. The yard is able to do us a deal and so Heydays is ashore for the next two weeks having her bottom and stern gear attended to…

Final thoughts…we expressed our disappointment at what we considered to be an early failure of gear which we thought was relatively new. Mick’s view, once he learns that we have been almost all the way round the UK is that we shouldn’t be surprised given the distance that Heydays has covered. We console ourselves that at least we are wearing gear out (like our mooring warps) rather than them just rotting away through lack of use like so many of the boats we see in the Lymington marinas…

A short weather window opens with some winds promising to drive us East…at least for a while. A drive back to Newlyn and we spend the afternoon checking and re-checking the diesel filters and fuel lines and then running the engine to make doubly certain that we don’t have to call for help again. The Lizard is the next tide gate we need to round and will also mark the most southerly point of the trip round the UK. This necessitates an early morning start to be there by 10am latest. Alarms are never welcome and  4.30 is particularly grim. We busy ourselves with a minimum of domestic hygiene and get the boat ready for what is forecast to be a biggish swell, courtesy of the Atlantic lows which have been threatening the western areas of the UK for some time. It seems that the culprit is a split in the jet stream with a vindictive little arm now tracking further south than usual. Along with two fishing boats, we slip out of Newlyn, determined to come back soon as part of a visit to the Scillies which we are sadly missing this time. After the lights of the harbour, the open sea seems inky black and we just have the lights of the fishing boats for company as we head out across Mounts Bay towards the Lizard.  As our eyes get used to the dark we start to make out the faint outline of St Michaels Mount, dark and brooding (over what might have been a glorious role as the capital of a Nazi Cornwall?).

The merest glimmer of light breaking over the horizon, suggests that the sun is not far behind and soon we can make out the dark grey outline of the headland. Decision number 1 for the day…do we take the inshore channel round the Lizard (and save ourselves a 3 mile detour) or do we play safe and keep well off. The pilots warn of breaking seas in SW winds and the need for local knowledge to make the inshore passage….we take the detour. As it happens, there is no sign of breakers, just the distant sight of the Atlantic swell sending up great plumes of salty spray as it arrives angrily in Europe from Trump’s America. …(OK OK….even Trump doesn’t control the waves, but we are still, just, in Europe).

There is something special about dawn at sea. Night passages have their own charm and even tranquillity. The night watches pass almost in a cocoon, with just the dim glow from the instruments for company and a constant scanning of the blackness for what is mostly not there at all. But the first sign of light brings a gradual awakening of a wider world.

Soon we can make out the ever-present threat of lobster pots (how many did we pass unseen in the night?) and take action to avoid. We see the early terns and gannets wheeling and searching for breakfast…and we see our crew appearing blearily from below after final 2 hour kip offering hot coffee.

Tiredness seems to disappear with the dawn, and we marvel at the constant and rapidly changing patterns of the morning sky.

The sun finally makes an appearance itself just as the long haul jets are playing noughts and crosses in the sky, although if they are US planes we suppose it would be tic tac toe…

We round the Lizard in a stunning September sun and celebrate our most southerly headland  with a tot of whisky from Scapa…our most northerly point, in Orkney.

Just off our beam we suddenly see dozens of gannets dive-bombing in rapid succession, heralding an unseen shoal (of anchovies, sardines?). Soon there is the unmistakable rise and fall of dorsal fins…who found the shoal first…the gannets or the dolphins? Either way there is competition and soon the shoal seem to seek shelter near Heydays as she pushes through these western approaches. The dolphins are with us for ages (but we are rubbish with the camera this time…or are they just shy?)…and then as quickly as they arrive, they leave us alone again, either having eaten their fill or having run out of fish.  We wonder whether dolphins ever fancy bird for lunch…

We turn Heydays northwards once more for the first time since April and the business of this bit of sea makes itself felt…

We goose-wing for as long as possible before finally hauling down the sails and turning once more to our ‘ol iron tops’l for our final approach.

At the third attempt, James manages to get John within an arm’s reach of a buoy and soon we are thinking of lunch…and naps. The day is bright and sunny and a swift call to the harbour taxi has us joining the day trippers and tourists…and feeling somewhat underdressed, although our version is that we look like salty sons of the sea…no-one is so impolite to point out that we are just scruffy…

We ponder lunch over a beer and hit on what turns out to be one of the highlight meals of the trip. Amanzi is a South African restaurant with a unique menu and a great range of cocktails. Afternoon rum and ginger beer very nearly does for us! Apologies for pictures of food and drinks…even sailors can snap their food!

John’s son and daughter in law (Christopher and Sarah) drive down to meet us and  we spend a happy afternoon pottering round the lanes.

As afternoon turns to evening the latest front makes its presence felt and the fine drizzle gets into every nook and cranny. We wait by the pontoon for the water taxi and watch a damp gentleman get into his inflatable tender. After a few brief pumps, he rows energetically and damply upstream. We are grateful for our warm and friendly taxi…and we pass him a little later, still rowing energetically enough but even more damply.

During the voyage from Newlyn, the engine behaved brilliantly when needed, although we seemed to have lost a bit of speed. More worrying is an annoying vibration from somewhere near the prop-shaft. We asked around in Falmouth to have a lift out to have a look, but they are all fully booked. Plymouth has a slot at 12.30 the following day. With an 8 hour sail this means an even earlier start. We get ourselves and the boat as ready as possible for a quick getaway and finally turn in around 8 to the gentle sound of rain lashing the deck…and the nagging back-of-the-mind awareness of a 3.15am alarm.

At 8.30 we are roused from almost-sleep by flashing blue lights and the unmistakeable sound of the twin engines of a Tamar Class lifeboat. We poke our heads out and they are looking for an elderly gentleman… we hear up and down the river for some time, but no news at the moment…hoping for the best.

With a forecast of SW F7 coming in over the next day or so, we sadly abandon ideas of getting to the Scillies on this trip. Shorter days, increasing frequency of strong south westerlies and the realities of domesticity mean that we are running out of time to get Heydays home for the winter. Several local sailors suggest in any case that the season has passed for comfy cruising in the islands. We set about doing the touristy thing in Cornwall and head off for what will be a very wet and gloomy visit to St Michaels Mount.

The causeway is only open for a couple of hours either side of low tide and we trudge off along with several other bedraggled groups and some bemused chinese students.

It takes a certain kind of person to live on an island like this and it appears that a member of the German High Command had been promised Cornwall. He apparently decided that the castle would be just the place to rule and retire…

The island itself is fascinating and we wander happily around despite the damp, wondering what it would have been like to have been besieged here by roundheads (or anyone else for that matter).

Before the tide turns we return to Cornwall and watch as the waters once more cut off the island…

The following day is bright and blustery and we consider a sail to Falmouth. Economics now rears its head and at nearly twice the daily rate we opt to leave Heydays for a few days in Newlyn instead of pushing East.

A lone sailor appears from the Scillies and we realise we have made the right decision. He had to move anchorage several times as the storm passed through and is now utterly exhausted…we go sightseeing again.

St Ives will appeal to some and not others, but the Tate and Hepworth is a real attraction for part of our crew. The tourists are (mostly) absent which makes the town navigable, but the Tate is sadly shut for renewal. We spend a happy few hours poking around the lanes and a couple of smaller galleries…

…and although we don’t see this…

..we get why Barbara Hepworth and generations of artists since, have been so inspired by the sea and landscape of Cornwall.

On the way back we visit the Sennen Cove Lifeboat to thank them properly. They are having a practice launch and we watch transfixed as they slide majestically into the waves…

The final bit of sightseeing takes us back in to the other big cornish industry…tin mining.

Our guide is an ex-miner who brings the reality of the industry to life. The tour underground is not for the claustrophobic and James and Chris find it ‘interesting’ but welcome the daylight at the end…

The mine closed in ’86 and with it a unique way of life. As so often, the women had a unique, physically exhausting and low paid role and the Cornish Balmaidens would have given the Scottish Herring Gutters a run for their money…

Economics, as we have seen in too many places around our coast, places profit above people, places and communities…with the state left to pick up the pieces once capitalists have left with the money…

 

 

 

Most things seem better in the sun and with a bright Monday and the added bonus of Chris and Yee Tak on board, (and Chris’s Dorset Apple cake), we set about taming our wild diesel bugs. Research is suggesting that with bio-diesels becoming more common, the problem of bugs will not go away, it just needs managing. We consider taking out the tank for a steam clean (where?) and renewing the fuel lines, but even that doesn’t always solve the problem. In fact we meet Jacques, a depressed French sailor who had exactly the same problem last year and had all the fuel system professionally cleaned…and then encountered his buggy friends all over again. Talking to various people around the thriving fish dock, it seems that fishing boats are not immune either. Their most pragmatic solution is the one we finally opt for….regular biocides in the fuel, followed by dispersants to suspend the hopefully now dead slimes to be burnt in the engine…and a large stock of replacement filters. The message is not if you get an attack, but when.

Our problem now is to source filters and new fuel line…enter new Newlyn friend number 1. We don’t get his name, but the young engineer in MTS runs us into Penzance in his van having phoned ahead to determine that they have the parts. His knowledge of diesel filters and part numbers is encyclopaedic and even better, at  22 years old, he is a great advert for the power of apprenticeships…even if he is critical of Cornwall College’s admin! Within the hour he gets us to Penzance and back complete with parts and even better, it only takes one more hour for the guys at Mill Autos to get extra filters delivered to the quay.

A sub-plot to all this is Yee Tak’s new friend Louis, off the fishing boat Victoria Anne. He sells us 3 huge crabs and one large spider crab for a total of £10.  She spends the rest of the day plotting the cooking and serving of the crabs…

…meanwhile, back in the engine room…Heydays is treated to a new filter, new fuel lines and a shock dose of biocide. The fuel refuses to flow until we take the highly technical action of blowing down the fuel line! With a rush the diesel flows and soon Heydays responds with a healthily purring engine once more. We throw in some dispersant for good measure and the engine appears to run faultlessly. It will take a while however, for us to completely relax without hearing every little change of engine note…

Newlyn is a busy fishing port with the outward signs of relative prosperity and we are enchanted by the constant activity both dockside and in the harbour. Despite the lack of a decent shower and dedicated facilities for soft yachties, we find that it has swiftly become one of the highlights on our journey round the UK, with a welcome and friendliness up with the best of the encounters we had on the East coast.

Spider crab gives us a great late supper, washed down with some chilled Picpoul de Pinet…

New friends in Newlyn part 2…

Tuesday dawns bright and sunny and we resolve to test the engine with a sail round the bay over to St Michaels Mount. Heydays pushes through a clear sparkling sea with a few returning fishing boats for company and although we enjoy the wind in our sails, we keep the engine running and listen nervously for any coughing or spluttering. This comes just as the rock is abeam and instantly we are out of our reverie and making sure that the wind will take us comfortably back to the safety of Newlyn harbour. It turns out to be just a blip, but…

Back in our berth, two more crabs and some salmon fill us to overflowing for lunch. A very happy hour or so is spent cracking, sucking and picking very last bits of juicy sweet meat from the shells…these are then boiled up to make a fantastic smelling stock…

We then resolve to tackle the intermittent aerial problems at the top of the mast. John and Yee Tak heave James plus his share of crab (big mistake) to the top of the mast. Operations there involve the highly technical ‘wiggling’ and making and breaking connections.

The anchor light responds and so does the VHF (we think). This is not a job to be done at sea and we marvel at how the old sailors used to think nothing of going aloft to deal with wet and flogging canvas in often rough seas and icy conditions.

In to Newlyn for a drink and Yee Tak is drawn inexorably to the Elisabeth Veronique which is unloading her catch after 5 days at sea. Enter new Newlyn friends number 3, 4 and 5. The skipper Mark, together with his two crew Shan and the apprentice Adam are happy for us to have a look and very soon they are filling a bag with 5 huge squid. They refuse to take any money and yet again we are humbled by the generosity of people who, having spent 5 days at sea in a small boat are happy to give away some of their hard-earned catch to complete strangers.

After 2 days rest they will be back out to sea again, to ensure that the rest of us can casually have squid, cuttlefish, turbot and brill for tea as the fancy or the latest cooking show takes us. Safe trips guys and we’ll think of you as we tuck in to our squid.

The swordfish by the quay turns out to be simply a great old-fashioned pub (albeit with some great music). We get chatting to new Newlyn friend number 6. Tammy is from the same part of S London as James and her Dad had one of the last big traditional London funerals (as we see on You Tube later). She has named her dog after him and swears that her chocolate lab has her Dad’s spirit and genes…

On hearing our troubles in hiring a car, she immediately gets on the phone to sort things out for us. In short order, she has found a car and even arranges to drive us out there to pick it up next day in her break time from work. Once again we are humbled by simple generosity and the kindness of strangers.

We reflect that Newlyn has a special place in our hearts and raise (several) glasses to the men of the Sennen Cove lifeboat, to the apprentice at MTS, to Louis on the Victoria Anne, to Mark Shan and Adam from the Elisabeth Veronique and to Tammy and indeed all the others in this remarkable community we didn’t have the chance to meet.