Rising Gales and Pulling Sails
50.34.25N 02.27.13W. Weds 10th June 2015
A rising gale up our tail brought us around to Portland in brisk style and we tippy toed carefully through a fine fleet of International racing dinghies including Lasers, 470s (they’re fast), skiffs (they’re even faster) and cats (blimey).
We have moored by the pontoon facing into the wind so the cockpit is protected and sunny and we are right at the entrance to the marina, so we’ve been watching the dinghies return after the race, screaming down the waves or in tow with broken rigging, but judging by the upbeat commentary and interviews on the radio, the crew are not broken spirited.
Today is only the first day of the event and the wind tomorrow will be even stronger, so they should be fun to watch as we take a day out to let the weather change mood and we walk around the Bill, 8 miles of fabulous scenery and Brittany style hamlets.
Our man in the marina told us that the championships we have been watching today are a smaller version of the 2012 Olympics held here. Today people from as far as Russia, China, Australia and Canada have been competing as well as from many European countries. Well I couldn’t believe 3 years has gone so quickly since we watched them in 2012. In another 3 years we will be well on our way home!
The last few weeks have been full of the expected final preps; bureaucratic, boaty, family etc. We have walked twice with Toby, Tracey, Darren and their 5 other dogs and Toby has settled well and is happy to see us for a walk and then go home. If anyone said to me it was cruel to part with him I would just refer them to the fact he now SLEEPS ON THEIR BED! We are so happy we can walk with him on our returns to the UK.
The diesel Tektank replacements are an improvement especially now the leaks from the connections have finally been stopped. So there will be no more danger of blocked fuel pipes caused by paint flaking off the sides of the old tank.
The watermaker produces 800ml a minute or 48ltrs an hour of sweet water and uses 6 amps an hour. We have been able to keep the original water tanks so we plan to run the water maker for 1 1/2 hrs each day to replace our estimated usage and we have found we can do this without draining the batteries. We have no generator so for electricity we use the engine, Rutland Windcharger and two solar panels, a small one infront of the sprayhood and a much bigger one that reaches right across the bimini to which it can be attached and removed easily for stowage.
The new mainsail is a leap ahead in technology. The battens are shorter and there are only three of them and with fewer seams it is much easier to unfurl from inside the mast. In fact today we only wanted a small proportion of it but as it is so slippery it all raced out ready and willing and Rob had to wind a fair bit back in. The genoa has a new UV strip and the spare genoa has been overhauled as a replacement. We looked into having a second Furlex fitted so we could fly both foresails downwind but the cost was prohibitive. Similarly, we thought a spare alternator and starter motor might be a good idea but at £1000 I don’t think so, after all the engine is only two years old, and we will use it as little as possible, promise.
We went to the Oyster Owners Annual Dinner at the OXO Tower in London and a lady there who recently completed the first Oyster World Rally in the smallest Oyster said she and her hubby literally sailed most of the way around, unlike other participants who wanted less time at sea and more socialising. She also gave me three bits of essential advice. Firstly take Nippon for the red ants in Panama as they come marching up the mooring lines, secondly pop some bay leaves into cupboards because cockroaches hate the smell and lastly “Oh and don’t worry about the weevils that float to the surface when you are boiling the rice you buy in Panama, just scoop them off, you’ll be fine!”
We stayed at the Cruising Association Headquarters in Limehouse while we were in London; an area steeped in the history of the world’s trade being shipped in and transferred to barges to pass through the lock gates and pulled by horses throughout our canal system for distribution all over the country.
Underneath the windows of the nearby 16th Century pub, The Grapes, Cook’s ships set off on their expeditions to the Americas. Today the tiny, narrow pub is owned in part by Sir Ian McKellen and on the first of our three visits there we collapsed exhausted at one of the seven tables in the little upstairs restaurant. Rob had gone to get some drinks and I felt scruffy, as if I had been pulled backwards through a gooseberry bush, as father used to say when I was a teenager. I hope Sir Ian doesn’t come in now, I thought. Well, guess what. He came round the corner, doffed his cap and said “Good evening”. He then sat in a corner with his friends until they all toddled off together for supper with Dame Judy. Charming man.
We played ‘Where’s Wally’ at the Albert Hall trying to spot youngest son Jonty in the crowd at his graduation and that evening went to see “Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown” with Tamsin Grieg, a lovely new musical at the time.
So that was London ‘done’ for a while. Farewells to family and friends took place at the weekend and last night, as it was grandson Henry’s 6th Birthday, we couldn’t leave without a slice of his homemade chocolate cake could we!
After all the wind and a glorious brisk sun-drenched walk 8 miles around Portland Bill we set sail in very light airs to round the Bill and head west for Dartmouth. On the day of our walk the ‘Race’ which is where the sea rushes over the irregular shallow seabed around the bill, was a raging torrent of angry white foam. You wouldn’t think it was the same place the next day, flowing flat and gentle as if exhausted.
We motored most of the 55 miles westwards in the company of many others and meeting a few heading east, motor sailing under mainsail alone and looking like one-winged flightless birds humming across Lyme Bay under a blanket of grey. In the water around us 2ft diameter giant orange jellyfish undulating ghostlike about a metre below the surface, perhaps the grown version of the millions of tiny ones we saw close to the Azores last summer.
Like homing pigeons, when we find a mooring spot we like we return to it time and again. In the steep-sided, picturesque valley of the river Dart we moored alongside an island pontoon (not connected to the shore) near the higher Kingswear chain ferry. We just feel comfortable there and at £20 per night it’s affordable.
So, a day free in Dartmouth, what to do? The Round Robin of course. All aboard the steam train and step back 50+years, smell the steam and hot oil, hear the hissing and the grinding of metal parts and feel the strain up the gradual climb out of this exquisite valley along typically rising and falling valleys of beautiful Devon to Paignton. We stopped at a couple of tiny stations on the way and how hard did that little engine have to work to move on.
Paignton, like Skegness on the east coast, is enjoyed by many as a seaside holiday resort. The harbour is for fishing boats and sailing dinghies and not the deep-bellied likes of us. The morning was cloudy and cool, the beach almost empty and I felt for the expectant holidaymakers, deprived of their longed for sunbathing, sitting outside restaurants willing their fish and chips to be an adequate alternative.
Our second trip would be our last on wheels in the UK. At the top and front of an open-topped, 1950’s double-decker bus we bounced up hill down dale and screamed around bends (at least it felt like that) to Totnes. Loving hands had perfected her old paintwork but the same hands needed to take a look at the engine as she stalled each time we stopped, like a recalcitrant donkey, unwilling to proceed!
Totnes had the steep hills that characterise Devon and Fore Street is lined with cultural art and craft shops as well a tea-shops, pubs and a Hotel. The local history is valued and accessible and a big open market sold local foods as well as locally made clothes from local wool, local wooden ducks, second-hand books and bric a brac, you know what I mean. Lovely place, stepped in culture and history, a little like Hay on Wye I thought.
Our final leg was aboard a modern river cruiser and took an hour back to Dartmouth. We sat alone and in warm sun on the top deck (again) passing fields of green woods (we’ll miss those when we’re gone), private homes hidden from the roads and facing the water and canoeists who had made camp on the only area of level bank for miles by a depositing bend in the river.
We reached The Dart Arms, our favourite pub in Dartmouth, for a last drink, phoned the river taxi once more and back on board had supper and reviewed our homework of tides and weather for Plymouth tomorrow.
There is a massive high settling over us for a few days at the moment. The yachts that left Dartmouth with us had one of two purposes in mind. One to do some sailing and the second, like us, to make passage. So single-winged (mainsail only) to steady us once again and eyes peeled for lobster pots, we motored the 35 miles to the Queen Anne’s Battery MDL Marina in Plymouth and spent the evening taking off and folding her sails, disconnecting the electrics from the base of the mast and re-homing in the forward loo all the contents of the fore-cabin.