Just In Time!

The 10th of May was very busy for us as we prepared the house to be left and gathered everything we would need for the voyage.  Doug decided to add another thing to our "to-do list" as he had organised the handing over of our dinghy, Tamar Fortune to its new owner :)  We also needed to say goodbye to Cody Sailing Club, who we'd been hosting on their Weir Quay dinghy camp.  Oh and our much-needed Shetland charts arrived at lunchtime!

Rapport on her Weir Quay Mooring

Suffice to say, we were pretty tired by the time we had loaded everything on board and packed it away that evening.  Rosie had brought so much food that we had to be pretty ingenious to find enough spaces to stow it all!  As Doug said "it was lucky that the kitchen sink had been bolted down"!

We'd only recently fitted the sails as we'd had to wait for good weather earlier in the week to have our mast down and the rigging replaced by Allspars in Plymouth, ready for this trip.

But we were well rested as we cast off the following morning and headed downriver and out into Plymouth Sound.  Then we had a lovely broad-reach sail to the Helford River in F4 and bright sunshine.

Moored on the Helford River

We rowed ashore for a drink at the Helford River Sailing Club and somehow ended up staying for their delicious supper as well.

Next day we had our jobs to do - Rosie cleaning the Weir Quay mud stain off the waterline and Doug sorting out the deck connections for all the cables up the mast.  Taking them apart for the mast to come down had dislodged long-accumulated dirt and they needed a thorough clean before the AIS and VHF antennae + mast lights would work properly.

The weather forecast for the following day was dreadful - SSE Force 7 and heavy rain, so we decided to sail the 3 miles back to Falmouth for a more comfortable time alongside in the Town Quay Marina.

After a slow start, next day and after most of the rain had stopped, we walked the 2 miles to Penryn to get ourselves a new Camping Gaz bottle - quite a trek with that heavy load!

Doug lugging the new Gaz bottle in his rucksack






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Guinness!

Image
At the moment the weather is always against us - very strong winds in the wrong directions!   So it was a wonderful relief to be able to sample some "proper" (i.e. Irish) Guinness in Carlingford last night after a long, trying week battling the elements. The Antidote In the last post, we were in Dunstaffnage Marina, waiting 2 days for the weather to improve. A Lovely Backdrop It's a good time to show you this special delivery we received from 5yr old Thomas, travelling with his parents on their 21'-9" Drascombe Cruiser, moored just ahead of us on the Caledonian Canal.  This was a thank-you to us after we charged his iPad. "Rapport" by Thomas At 06:15 on Wednesday 14th August, we finally cast off from Dunstaffnage and headed off to catch a fair tide through the maze of islands guarding the route south towards the Irish Sea. We were trying to time our journey to reach the entrance to Cuan Sound, where the fierce tide would start to flow south after 10:30....
Read more

Reaching Home

Image
On the mooring in New Grimsby Sound, the weather was so warm that I even jumped overboard at one point.  I didn't stay in the water for long though, it was more refreshing than I expected. New Grimsby Sound - Fine Weather After two days of sunshine, the weather turned grey and we took the overland route (green on the chart, only advised with at least half-tide and rising!) over to St Mary's for an early start, next morning.  We sadly gave up on the idea of anchoring in The Cove (between St Agnes and Gugh) and the delights of the Turks Head public house due to a forecast of SSE breezes blowing straight into the anchorage. The 60 miles to the Helford River involved light breezes and we motor-sailed all the way.  Our Yanmar engine continues to run smoothly; nearly home!  Tuna fish leapt, as did their prey, trying desperately to escape them.  We were impressed by the tide generated lumpy seas around Lizard Point, which bore no relation to the wind strength. In Helfo...
Read more