Safely in Waterford

Bonzo may have been sad to see us leave … but who cares ?

We had hired a “Corsa or equivalent” and got a “Polo” almost a Skoda.

Very nice to see Helen and family in Bristol, the Lizzy et Johannes in Barnstaple, then Angela and Martin en Sancreed  then back to el boato in Newlyn.

We met Dave on the pontoon.  The boat was well and happy. We slept anxiously.

Saturday: winds NE 4-5 maybe 6 going SE. We decided to go for it.

The very nice guy next to us said NE going NNE.

He was right.

0830.We set off from Newlyn.  Target Dunmore East.  Wind F 5 NE  (NNE F6) … got headed steadily to NNE. 

Quite cold during the night .

Dark from about 2100.

Bright full moon and Venus.

Lots of  porpoises. 

Bloody cold. 

Sailing quite fast, through the night, close hauled in F6. 

We both had brief sleeps.

The sky brightened at about 0500.

More marine mammals. 

Eventually arrived outside Waterford 0900.

Dunmore East looked lacking in shelter for the approaching SE breeze.

Opted for Duncannon anchorage.

Slept. Bliss…

Up for supper.

Slept … horrible.  Terrible exposed wobbly anchorage as wind went SW (not SE).

Up at 0800. Off at 0930. Motored to Waterford.

Moored.

I love Waterford Marina.

It's a dog's life.

Bonzo seems a lot calmer after Monday’s trouble, but unfortunately they couldn't save the poor Postman’s finger.       Why he put his hand through the letter box again after the last episode is still a mystery.

I'm surprised that we haven’t found the wedding ring in his poo yet.

Captain's blog

The plot so far.

David very kindly took us down to Itchenor.  We had a lot of "stuff".

The first night of our cruise involved staying on our mooring.  Lovely!

11 April 2012.

Up at dawn (0830)

West Pole 1000 (least depth just north of bar beacon was 0.8 M @ 0945 (HW Chi +75 min)  .. I mention this simply to show that we have been 1. passage planning 2. keeping a diligent log.

Anyway  .. despite going quite well, we weren't fast enough to get to Weymouth and had a romantic evening (night) in Studland Bay instead  (anchored in 3 metres using 40 metres of chain .. ample I thought).

Spent some time worrying about blue liquid coming out of the cooling system.

12 April 2012

up at 0530 (well Jean was).  Left at 0630  .. fair tide towards somewhat minor overfalls at Anvil Point.

Arrived Weymouth Town Quay 1010.

Tied up at Town Quay.  One other boat there Presented our compliments to the Harbour Master's staff, who made us move 20 metres up stream, reasons:

1. Lots of 20  metre yachts coming in

2. We should have called on VHF first

3. Dogs like pissing on lamp posts

4. The "Olimpics is Stressful"

5. etc

The new loos at Weymouth have a Dyson Airblade in the men’s washrooms. This would be really good if the taps ran sufficiently to get your hands wet. The computerised flushing  .. in a word ..  doesn't flush.

Serviced a winch without losing the bits over the side.

Great fish and chips.

Next morning  .. alone on pontoon.  No sign  of the fleet of 20 Metre racing  yachts.

13 April 2012  ..A FRIDAY

Up at 0530   .. Yes, really.  Really dark.

Portland Bill at 0630.  Hit 11.2 Knots (on inner passage).

Thought about Dartmouth, maybe Salcombe?  Opted for Plymouth.

Arrived Sutton Lock Marina 1830.

'nuff said.

Italian(ish) dinner.

14 April 2012.

Shower etc

Re-fuelled.

"We'll definitely (90%) go to  Fowey  rather than Falmouth (10%)".

after a brief thunderstorm, the VHF and AIS malfunctioning, and a little rain ..

arrived Falmouth Visitor's Marina at 1815.

approaching Falmouth

Salmon pasta supper ..  excellent.

15 April 2012

Day off in Falmouth.

Bought a new aerial

Had a nice walk.

Discussed tomorrow.

16 April 2012

"Gale 8 later"

Spent the morning fitting the new aerial.

Art gallery and Tesco Metro in the afternoon.

No sign of gale.

Force 9 promised for 17th.

We may be here all Summer.

Steak and potatoes followed by Tescos Chocolate Tart. Lovely.

17, 18, 19, 20  April.  Stayed in Falmouth.

Had a nice walk.

A short run.

A nice meal at the Yacht Club ("visiting yotties welcome etc.")

Many trips to Tescos.

A nice visit to the National Maritime Museum.

Interesting to see that most of the boats I have sailed through the years are now considered to be antiques and are hanging from the ceiling  (wayfarer, laser, firefly etc.).  The nice lady who sold us our tickets refused to believe that I wasn't entitled to a "concession" despite me being somewhere in my 50s.

David arrived on Friday night.

Supper aboard. Up at 0540 for the weather forecast.  "NW F5-F7".  Let's go for it.

We made it to Newlyn. A little bumpy in places, but no major problem. I didn’t vomit.

Newlyn is nice.

Newlyn welcomes yachts.

The nice men in the watch tower ( Dave and Dave .. Dave's assistant) are very helpful.
Dave doesn't answer calls on VHF from yachts as they don't have VHF in the tower. (No phone either).
Berth at one of the first 3 fingers at the SW end of the floating pontoon. (No too difficult .. we didn't hit anything)

There are 3 finger pontoons for yachts and they can take 12 visitors at a time.

£18 a night, free electricity (you need a long wire and need to get to the plug before anyone else gets it).
Eat your heart out Weymouth.

Nice walk to  Mousehole.

Windy. Windy. Windy.

Cruise News

With Bonzo back from rehab and our house-sitter discharged from hospital, we are almost ready to go.

Our "pet" guard dog "Bonzo" before his lobotomy

We hope to set sail on Wednesday and get to Milford Haven on 23rd April

Another Epic is Planned

This posting is to everyone we know who might be interested in joining us for any part of this exciting future epic sailing adventure.

We have decided to vacate our lovely mooring in Chichester for the next 12 months, at least, and make our way slowly to Scotland.

 Some of you may hopefully be interested in a week or two's sailing, others perhaps a chance to motor through the Crinian Canal or to join us for a drink on the Welsh coast.  Anyway, please get out your diaries and see if any part of what we are planning looks like something you might try. Even just joining us for a weekend or a few days would be good.

The plan  .. all of which is subject to weather, tides and the captain's whim ... is as follows (roughly).

First Leg  Chichester to Milford Haven (2 weeks)
Leave Chichester 11 April 2012 heading West.
Sail via some of the following places in approximately the following order:
Solent, Yarmouth, Portland / Weymouth, Dartmouth,  Plymouth, Falmouth, Newlyn, Isles of Scilly  or  Padstow, possibly Lundy Island  ..to Milford Haven.
Return home by train from Milford Haven on 26th April

Feed the dogs, go to work, cut the grass and get warm and dry.

Second Leg   Milford Haven to South West Ireland (Cork) (4 weeks)
Train to Milford, Friday 4th May
Sail to Ireland via some of the following places in probably not this order:
Kilmore Quay, Waterford /Dunmore East, Yougal (not to be confused with "Yoghurt" which is in Denmark), Kinsale, Glandore, Baltimore, Fastnet (!) , Schull, Crookhaven, Bantry Bay, Kenmare River,  Dingle Bay  and back  to Cork.
Return home by air from Cork on 30 May.

Feed the dogs, go to work, cut the grass and get warm and dry.

Third Leg  Cork to Belfast (3 weeks)
Plane to Cork 13 June
Sail via some of the following:
Yougal, Waterford, Wexford, Arklow, Wicklow, Dublin, Malahide, Carlingford Lough, Ardglass (as opposed to "Aardvark" which is a nocturnal mammal native to Africa), Strangford Lough, Belfast Lough.
Return home by air from Belfast on 4th July.

Shoot the dogs, go to work, cut the grass and get warm and dry.

Fourth Leg  Belfast to Portavadie (4 weeks)
Fly to Belfast 19 July
Sail via some of the following (this bit needs a lot more planning):
Larne, Red Bay, Mull of  Kintyre, Islay, Jura, The Crinian Canal, Loch Fyne  to Portavadie.
Return home by air from Glasgow on 16 August  (leaving the boat in Scotland for the winter)

Buy a new dog, resign from work, kill the grass, plan next years Scotland Cruise.

Anyway, anyone who can join us for any of this would be very  welcome.

Apart from your company and mutual entertainment, we especially need extra crew for the bit across the Bristol Channel that is, Falmouth  via The Isles of Scilly and Lundy to Milford Haven.  Also, I understand that the Crinian Canal is difficult without extra helpers (no sailing experience required for this bit however).

Bonzo looks well

Home again.  Bonzo looks fine, if a little crazy.
There were no serious, epic or near-epic events on our way home (apart from F7 heading back to Guernsey), but we had a great trip ... "thank you" to all our guests for making this Summer Cruise even better.

Here's a nice sunset in L'Aberwrac'h.

(You may not know that L'Aberwrac'h when spell-checked comes out as Aberrational,  Blabbermouth, Liebfraumilch or Liberace).

In the footsteps of Pete Goss

Here we are  .. on pontoon "L" at the Sables d'Olonne, Port Olona. 

This is from where my mate Pete (also Tony Bullimore and Ellen M) all set off  .. from this very  pontoon ..   the very wood is hallowed..

Where've we been?  Well, from St Denis we went down to St Martine and moored outside.  At St Martine we were entertained to a helicopter rescue of an empty stretcher (at sea) by a helicopter and several men dressed in black rubber .. anyway, it made a lot of noise and was quite interesting for the first 20 minutes or so.

From thence to Bourgenay, a nice place where a serious single-handed 6.5 M trans- Biscay  epic was ending .. The French know about sailing and about epics ...  anyway, next day en route back to St Martine we caught a swordfish,  not a big one, but it got away. Later it came back with its friends and ate ALL OUR HOOKS.

Later we berthed in St Martine.  Historic indeed.

Next to La Rochelle  via Ile d'Aix.

La Rochelle is big (you may think it’s a long way to ... etc,  but  La Rochelle is even bigger).. anyway…. at LR we had to say "Goodbye" to Rob, Gemma and family  and try to cope alone without them.

4 nights in LR.

Windy trip to  Les Sables  .. F6 at one stage (cold front with 20 degree wind veer and some concern on board) anyway (again) we made it to Les Sables. 

At Le Sables we explored St Pete Goss' pontoon, had a lovely supper of Smoked Salmon Pasta and are now listening to Bob Marley.. Tough, eh ..

Went running (briefly) today.  Then we explored the sacred pontoon.

At the end is a 150 foot mega motor boat  .. see picture  . The thing that worries me is  .. why couldn’t they afford a proper stainless steel anchor?