Tornado Round Britain

 No sailing today with well over 20 knots blowing outside. Looking ahead it seems we will be getting more light winds after tomorrow and all from the north making it difficult to know quite where we would end up. Isle of Man seems too far away dead upwind and also has covid travel restrictions, so it was either going to have to be the English North West or the coast of Ireland. None of these options looked good ... Either considering the risk of being stranded a long way from home or of awkward sails through busy shipping channels in inadequate breezes. The long and the short is that, having covered 500 miles, we are pulling the plug on the trip and putting the circumnavigation firmly on the 'unfinished business' list. A soft bed and a hearty breakfast later, we are on the train home to pick up the boat trailer, then back up to Anglesey to get Double Sovereign dismantled and strapped down for the road trip back south. We both feel really positive about the trip and although we ...

5.30ish we dropped the mooring  A lovely calm departure. Everyone else seems to still be in bed.  Holyhead harbour after a bit of a lively trip.  Nigel came to get us and our gear to shore.   Had to use the phone alarms to get ourselves or of the sleeping bags at 0400. Managed to feed ourselves and strike camp in the record time of two hours and got ourselves under way at 0600 exactly as planned. Getting out of the anchorage was about of a drift until we got out of the shelter of the hills and into the forecast SW breeze. The spinnaker went up as soon as it was safe to do so and ... This is the joy of long distance sailing ....the spinnaker stayed up, on the same tack until past lunchtime. It great not having a leeward mark to spoil things. Breeze started off as about a F3 and gently built throughout the day. We made very good speed in spite of the rather confused and choppy wave conditions doing what they could to spoil things.. more on this in a later posting....

Brian going shopping in the Tornado way. WET.  Another quiet day out in Cardigan Bay meant another day hanging around Fishguard looking for things to do. The weather forecast looked promising for the next day although occasionally verged on to a little more fruity than we might like. But..optimism prevailed so we got ourselves up to the Co-op to restock food and planned for an early morning departure so that we could stay ahead of the increasing breeze.

Old Fishguard Harbour  Had to paddle in for a visit to the Gents! Evening mist settling in.  Old Fishguard Fort keeping us safe in harbour. Sail GP Highlights from Plymouth   No wind forecast today. Anglesey is still a long way off. This meant a day of thinking about what our best strategy would be. Getting all the way round before we are recalled back to work seems way beyond us now. Getting to Anglesey and beyond into Scotland is not looking certain at all for the coming week.. like it or not we are now thinking about exit strategies and how best to get ourselves and Double Sovereign back home from wherever we do end up. The weather forecasts are changing on an hourly basis which is not making planning any easier. As I write this in the evening we are going nowhere tomorrow but we do seem to have one opportunity to get to Anglesey on Wednesday. Winds are forecast to be on the borderline of what would be prudent and manageable. This forecast, however, has improved i...

Sailing past Grassholm island Looking at another dodgy wind forecast Customs and excise at Fishguard  According to the carefully made passage plan, we needed to be up a dawn and under way as soon as possible. We'd be fighting the tide to get out of Milford Haven and as long as we had enough wind to get to St Agnes's had by 0800 we had a good shout at getting through the awkward tidal overfalls around Skomer island. There is a shortcut passage in between Skomer and the mainland which we shied away from as it would have may short tacking up a very narrow channel in several lots of tide. Taking fewer, longer tacks around the outside seemed to be the way to go. If the wind died we could come back and overnight in Dale... Although that looked to become more than one night if I did happen. Again if the wind died once we had got past Skomer we could then head for Solva. If the opposite happended we could go right round. As it turned out, the wind did ok an shifted slightly to the lef...

Feet at Angle Bay in Milford Haven Angle Bay pre departure mooring Milford Haven scenery More Milford Haven scenery  With the boat moored stern-to I was able to clearly see the shore from my sleeping bag and, no doubt, the dog walking population of Angle were also able to glimpse the delights contained within our little green tent. I woke up to see Uncle Albert from only Fools and Horses peering into the tent. He obviously wasn't too impressed by what we saw and he went on his way. It was shortly after that when the tide rose just enough to pop our new anchor out of the weeds that had held it all night and for us to start heading for the concrete. Pre-breakfast paddling is not a sport that I recommend. Uncle Albert turned up again for a chat in the middle of it all but quickly grasped what was going on and disappeared again. When we had at least made the boa secure Inthe shore, uncle Albert reappeared with a big anchor, some warp and a rubber dinghy. He leaped in, paddled off some ...

Angle Bay Dried up near the local squires sea wall Milford Haven Gas processing plant. (Hummed most of the night!) Sea Dog Another sea dog  A good offshore breeze was blowing as we sailed away from Bude at stupid o' clock. This turned into something rather more fruity once we got off a bit. It must have been at the top end of f4 but with some quite sharp edged big gusts coming off the cliffs. It all got a bit much (never happy with this wind are we?) And decided that the safe thing to do would be to drop a reef in and sail towards Hartland Point where the wind would either steady or we could bale out into Instow. The reefing process went ok, which was encouraging and things stabilised somewhat for the fetch to the headland. At the headland the wind did ease and steady which gave us the shove we needed to shake out the reef, bear off, set the spinnaker and begin the Great Crossing. Spinnaker carried us almost to Lundy where it had to be put away for a fast F3-4 two-sail reach across...

Slow going from Port Isaac Bude beach mooring In flight catering provided by British Rail Bude beach mooring Slow going to Bude Family beach picnic Bob photo bombing Pole and Lindy's romantic moment  The plan after leaving Port Isaac was to carry on up the Cornish coast and hopefully get into Devon. A gentle breeze offshore blew us through the harbour entrance under jib alone. After that the sensible and seaman like thing to would be to luff up, drop the anchor and get the main up in a calm and organised manner. This we did... Perfectly. "This is going well" said I to myself. With the main organised all we had to do was get ........the....... Anchor........up. nothing........to.....it....... One hour later despite sailing back and forth over the blasted thing we had to cut the anchor free. Fortunately the warp sank so the local fishermen won't be fouling their props on it. New criteria for our next destination: somewhere we can buy a replacement anchor. Supposedly a f...

Newquay Bay These buildings looked like a ship last night when we came in.  Just as grumpy as Doc Martin! Port Isaac Getting bored  Drifting aimlessly  Where is the wind! Rock Cool shot Skip taking a rest. Haha! A low expectations day with the priority being to get out of Newquay and find some peace and quiet. The camel estuary was set as a target. Just ten miles so ought to be doable even with the wind being fickle.  Tide times meant that we had to be ready to leave before the harbour dried out. Being sufficiently tired from the day before meant that we were able to get some decent sleep in spite of the party gping on at the top of the beach. Once outside and rigged it was a bit of a drift. Funnily enough.. not expecting anything meant that it became quite an enjoyable drift/ gentle paddle. Another sunfish sighting provided some zoological interest. We hoped to be able to get alongside it but our paddles were obviously too noisy and the beast submerged before we cou...

Newquay family gathering Newquay family gathering The tranquility of a quaint Cornish fishing village Early morning in Newquay harbour Boat maintenance and knees receiving much needed vitamin D The quiet little harbour of Newquay exploded into life at around 06.00 when the local fishing fleet got I to their boats and left. I've never seen them land any fish so I can only assume that these wise folk knew what was going to happen later in the day. At around about hangover o'clock the small patch of sand in the harbour (made significantly smaller by the presence of Double Sovereign) began to fill up with seemingly all of Birmingham's frustrated international travellers. It became impossible to move in the end. Bright spots were a visit by poles sister hand her family who I hadn't seen for decades and also a long overdue trip to the laundrette. That and pasties as well as fish and chips made the day bearable.  In amongst the many distractions we were offered plenty of assis...

Fistral beach stopover waiting for the tide Fistral beach stopover waiting for the tide Caption not possible Fistral beach stopover waiting for the tide  Newlyn to Newquay  Another day of several halves... extremes of good and bad. The forecast was the same as for the previous day at Newlyn so we were optimistic of finding some decent breeze. Forecast E ish f3 sounded spot on. Drifted to just off Mousehole when the breeze filled in exactly as the forecast. The spinnaker went up and stayed up all the way around Land's end. This was champagne sailing at its best ... and what a location! Fantastic. Best bit of sailing I've done in a long long while. After a starboard tack leg past land's end the plan was to luff up gently until probably ha ing to drop the spinnaker and then do a white sail fetch a long the north corm9sh coast. Reality ..... sucks sometimes. The minute we put the kite away the wind switched off completely. Here began the most baffling bit of sailing I've ev...