Leaving the UK on Nimrod

We left Padstow as planned, although the wind did not do what it was supposed to do – what a surprise.  As we motored up the Camel Estuary away from Padstow it seemed like the wind would be OK so we raised the main and headed down the North Cornish coast towards the Isles of Scilly, after about 1/2hr it was obvious there was not enough wind and the main was flapping about like an old hankie so down it came and we motorsailed with just the gennaker for most of the day in calm seas and sunshine.  We had a visitor spend a couple of hours with us, a young swift hopped on board, obviously in need of a rest, he perched on various parts of the boat before heading off. The wind picked up for the last 15miles or so and by the time we got to Scilly it was up to nearly 20knts.  We anchored in St Helens Pool, that is supposed to be a well sheltered anchorage but we had a very bumpy night.

Young Swift pays us a Visit off Cornwall	We Eventually Catch some Fish (Pollack)

Our friends, Jean and John, were joining us in Scilly so we left St Helens Pool and headed round to Porth Cressa on the main island of St Mary’s to await their arrival, a busy anchorage with nearly all French boats there – only one or two Red Ensigns to be seen.

I thought I had better try a bit more fishing just to give Sue something to write about!!!  Surprise, surprise the rod and lures do actually work and an hours fishing resulted in two large Pollack and a decent Cod, as well as 1/2 dozen smaller Pollack that went back – see it really is very easy this fishing lark!!!  We caught quite a few more Pollack during our stay in the Scillies.

We picked Jean and John up in the dinghy on the beach – the best way to arrive on your holiday, to hear John complaining about the most expensive bus ride ever, £3.50 each to travel about 1/2 mile from the airport to St John’s!!!  It was soon forgotten as the beer and wine were tasted.

We had a great time visiting various places around the Islands and the weather was reasonably kind as we had a lot more sun than rain and no mist or fog.  We had one very wet day that, at least, let us test out the water collection off our new bimini roof – we collected well over 100ltrs of nice clean rainwater so that goes down as a huge success.  Seeing as we nearly always anchor, rather than paying exorbitant marina prices, getting water usually means filling jerry cans ashore and carting them back in the dinghy so getting water without even leaving the boat is great.

Lunchtime in The Isles of Scilly	Jean & Sue Admiring the Local Flora

All too soon we had to head back to the main harbour of St John’s to say goodbye to Jean and John and put them on their gold plated bus back to the airport.  We had a great time with them for the week and we are looking forward to their next visit – as well as visits from other friends and family.

We had another couple of days waiting for the weather to play fair so we could head back to the mainland.  After a very lumpy night in Porth Cressa we had had enough of nearly being thrown out of our bed by the swell in the anchorage so we got up at about 0400 and headed for the Helford River near Falmouth.  The seas were big and uncomfortable with not really enough wind to keep us moving comfortably so it was a very rough start to the passage with Sue going back to bed to avoid getting sea sick.  Eventually the seas calmed a bit, as did the wind so we motorsailed all the way and anchored in the lovely Ponsence Cove just inside the Helford entrance.

Perfect Sailing Leaving the Helford River	Leaving the UK Behind, Salcombe

We left the Helford in perfect conditions, flat seas, sunshine and 12knots of wind from behind.  I rigged both our poles and set our two headsails wing and wing to pull us along at a perfect 7.5knts.  It lasted for about 1/2 the crossing to Salcombe before the seas started building and the wind increased until we only had the jib sail out, doing 8 or 9 knts.  We headed up the Salcombe Estuary to anchor at the very top of The Bag where our friends Pru and Mike (we met them in Norway)came out in their dory to welcome us to Salcombe.

The weather did not seem to want us to leave the UK so we had a full week in Salcombe,  we had a really great time with Pru and Mike, helping them pack up as they are moving house, as well as helping Mike with various jobs on their yacht, Ghida, in preparation for a three week holiday to France.  In between we managed a few drinks and meals together, in return we managed to get all our washing done as well as getting driven to the supermarket for supplies – see how easily pleased we are these days!!!

Finally the wind and sea state looked good for us to head towards the Channel Islands so Friday morning saw us raising both anchors and heading down the Salcombe Estuary to leave the UK behind as we head for sunnier southern parts.  Mike and Pru waved us off from the headland and we headed out into the Channel.  Full sail and a little help from one engine to start with had us heading SE towards Guernsey, after a couple of hours the wind had backed slightly to the SW and we turned the engine off to sail at 8 to 9 knts nearly all the way to Guernsey.  The shipping lanes in the middle of the Channel were very busy and a couple of cargo boats that we were going to be quite close to studiously ignored all attempts to contact them by radio and also made no effort to change course, so we had to alter course to give us a safe passing distance.  There was quite a bit of radio traffic and most other shipping seemed happy to answer calls, maybe we were unlucky with our 2 potential risks – I even called Brixham Coastguard for a radio check and they confirmed we were loud and clear from over 30 miles away, it seemed from their answer that they had clearly heard us calling the two ships also!!!.

 

Castle Cornet Anchorage, Guernsey	How the Other Half Live

The wind dropped off and we motorsailed the last 10nm into Havelet Bay, St Peter Port, Guernsey where we anchored for a few days.  The residual swell found it’s way into the anchorage to make the first night pretty uncomfortable but since then it has been a pretty good place with plenty of sunshine and little wind.  Saturday saw the arrival of a 128ft long Oyster yacht, it looked very impressive coming up the coast under full sail and even more impressive when it came in to anchor.  I thought they might have come into the anchorage a bit further but a check on the AIS showed it to be 6.8m draught as well as 33ft beam explained why they stopped further out.  A 200hp RIB was lowered into the water by a crane that folded down into the deck while boarding steps came out of the side of the hull and folded down to board the RIB – like something out of James Bond!!!  A very impressive yacht with an even more impressive price tag no doubt (probably 20 to 30 million at a guess!!!).

We are spending a few days here to take advantage of duty free fuel prices, 60p per litre for diesel, and to enjoy some of the stunning beaches around Guernsey, Sark and Herm.  Then we head off to France to cruise around the Brittany coast before meeting up with Caroline and Rich for a week at the end of July – really looking forward to that.

Hi all Sue here

As usual the Captains covered it all, I must get in before him next time we update blog!!

Isles of Scilly were beautiful and I’m glad we managed to visit them despite weather conditions as usual. We had a great time there with our friends and think we managed to visit most pubs. On our many walks we came across various stands on the side of road selling fruit and veg and you just left your money in the honesty box, I couldn’t see this working in many places!! We had some wonderful ice creams in St Agnes, various flavours to choose from then topped with clotted cream and a flake, lethal on the calories but worth it..

As you can see from picture the fishing is now going well. After me joking about it on last blog there was no way the next time Chris went out fishing he was going to return without any!! We now have a well stocked freezer.

It was lovely visiting Salcombe to spend some time with our friends Pru and Mike. We were glad to be able to help out with their house move and boat jobs in return for getting our washing done!!. On top of moving house they also look after Mikes dad Richard who suffers with dementia and had to get him sorted to go into respite care for three weeks. Mike, Pru and Margaret (Mikes mum) do a wonderful job of looking after Richard but it’s a very trying time for them all. Richard is a lovely man and its very sad to see what this illness is doing to him and his very caring family. What Chris didn’t mention about our anchoring in Salcombe was the fact we ended up on a sandbank. Our first day there and Mike very kindly took us supply shopping to Tesco, it was a very windy day and Nimrod had been moving around quite a bit on her anchor. On returning in the Dinghy fully loaded with shopping and it was pouring down, I looked ahead and thought Nimrod seemed to be sitting quite a bit higher than the other boats at anchor. As we got closer it was quite obvious that something was not right and there was Nimrod perched on a sandbank. So there we were in the dinghy, load of shopping and still pouring down and quite a few yards away from Nimrod. Only thing for it was for Chris to roll trousers up and wade in thick black smelly mud to boat barefoot and fetch my wellies!! I then joined him to wade to the boat but being a lot smaller managed to sink up to my knees on first steps. I shouted to Chris but he said I would have to wait until he’d put the shopping on the boat!! It’s a good job we’ve got a hose on back of boat as the smell was horrendous, we just had to strip of everything and shower of all the mud, not a pretty site I can assure you!! Ah well another experience in boating has been learnt.

We are now in Guernsey and the weather is gorgeous at last, actually got the bikini and sun cream out!! Chris is very excited about duty free fuel but I am going into town to suss out the wine prices, I’m sure this is also very important!! Hopefully our friends, Mike and Pru, will sail in on Ghida later today and we will greet them with a well deserved anchor drink.

Making Progress South

We managed to get across the harbour to the wall outside Chris’ shed on the high Spring Tide and lifted our shiny new bimini canopy onto the frame using the spinnaker halyard – all went very smoothly with no dramas, just as planned!!!.  Back across the harbour to the main wall then and get the new top all screwed down to the frame, windows fitted and joints sealed all ready to go.  All in all it took an awful lot of hard work to make the bimini cover but it was well worth while, the cockpit now looks much brighter than it did with the blue canvas, we can now walk all over the roof instead of just down a narrow plank and we can also collect water off the roof when we need to. Hopefully you can see from the pictures that it looks like it has always been part of the boat.

So it was finally time to say goodbye to the Isle of Man for the last time and start making progress South.  Firstly a huge thank you to Chris Machin for help and assistance making the bimini and for letting us do all the work we could to keep costs down, also thanks to Bill and Angus for letting us use the shed to do all the work inside.  I think it cost about £2000 in total to make the cover, that is not too bad seeing as a new canvas cover was around £1500 and would need renewing every 3 or 4 years in the Med sunshine.  Thanks also to the Harbour Staff, Martin and Keith, for looking after us.

New Bimini Roof all Fitted	Inside View of Bimini

The forecast was not too good for leaving the Isle of Man, but it was getting worse with strong SW winds setting in – not good for going South.  We decided to do a 20 mile hop down the coast to Castletown before heading across the Irish Sea to Holyhead.  The last 2 or 3 miles into Castletown, around Langness Point were about as bad as we have encountered with a strong F6 SW blowing against Spring Tides and the fact that Langness is a rough patch of sea anyway.  We had aimed over 2 miles off the shore to try and miss the worst of the conditions but it was still really rough with things jumping around inside the boat that have never ever moved before!!!  We got into Castletown and the wind died to almost nothing – you could not believe the difference in 20 mins and 2 miles.

Out of Castletown the next day, we started with westerly winds and actually managed to do some sailing for a change, conditions were not too bad and we thought our crossing to Holyhead might be pretty good – no such luck!!  Halfway across the wind started backing to the SW and increasing as the forecast had promised so it was motorsailing time.  As we approached the Skerries north of Anglesey the wind was a good F6, again blowing against the Spring Ebb to kick up some more shitty seas.  Sue was struggling to keep everything in place inside while Chris dropped the main sail and tried to dodge the worst of the waves as we headed to Holyhead.  We were mighty happy to be tied up alongside in Holyhead Marina.

We had planned to just spend a few days in Holyhead but the weather had other ideas with a constant stream of low pressure depressions heading across the country giving gale force winds for over a week, we were tied up securely and we were definitely not going anywhere in that!!!  Scotland had things much worse with F10 and F11 winds, we only had F8-9.  There were another few boats also stuck in Holyhead waiting for better weather.  We finally escaped after 10 days – that was long enough in Holyhead.

It did us a chance to meet up with lots of friends, have one or two parties and finish of the final few jobs we needed to do.  Chris also managed a couple of days racing with John on Madam Wen in the Bank Holiday Weekend regatta – very enjoyable but bloody hard work even with electric winches and self tacking jibs!!!  How these single handed racers manage all the way around the world I really can’t even guess.

We left Holyhead on the Bank Holiday Monday and lots of friends came to wave us off on our way – all very emotional.  Too many of you to list here but a great big thanks to all of you for going out of your way to come and say goodbye.

We headed down to Bardsey Island, around the corner into Aberdaron to anchor for the night, we had quite a swell rolling into the bay and it was just about OK for us on Nimrod – you definitely would not have stayed there on a monohull, you would have been rolled out of your bunk.

Next day we headed to Fishguard, some very bumpy seas around Bardsey Island for the first hour or so but we had enough wind for sailing so off we went.  Just for a change the wind increased a bit and backed to WSW so although we were still sailing really well at 7 or 8 knts it was hard on the wind with typical short choppy Irish Sea conditions for 7 1/2 hrs to Fishguard – not the most comfortable trip we have ever had.

Nimrod From the Top of The Mast	Main Halyard Nearly Chaffed Through!!!

We dropped the mainsail as we entered Fishguard to find that the main halyard had nearly chafed through at the top of the mast, our halyard is 12mm Dyneema that is very strong but it is under a huge amount of tension with the mainsail fully hoisted.  The halyard was fixed to the ring on the head of the sail that you can just see in the photo below and this has been fine up till now, unfortunately the choppy seas and windward sailing must have caused the head of the sail and the ring to swivel around and this meant the halyard was being rubbed against the top roller as the sail ring moved from side to side.

So we had to re-design the fixing point for the halyard to prevent future problems, the halyard is now attached directly to the mast track head car, this car can slide up and down the track but it does not move or swivel no matter what the sail does.  Hopefully this will solve the problem – a trip up the mast also reinforced our conclusions with no sign of anything else up there that might have caused the chaffing.

Re-Engineered Halyard Attachment

We left Fishguard on Thursday to go round St David’s Head through Ramsey Sound and Jack Sound and into Milford Haven for the night anchored in Watwick Bay just inside the entrance.  Hardly any wind so it was 5hrs of motoring on calm seas.

It was a dawn o’clock start from Milford to Padstow, up at 05:30 and on our way by 06:00 into very pleasant conditions, not quite enough wind to sail at the speed we needed to make the tide at Padstow but only a bit of engine needed to keep us moving.  We had a visit from a couple of pods of dolphins, about 25 in the first group and 8 in the second group, they were with us for over an hour which was really nice.  By 09:00 the wind had increased by a couple of knts and we could turn off the engine and relax in perfect sailing conditions with 14knts of wind from the NE as we headed South, but it couldn’t last!!!  The wind picked up a bit, the seas increased a bit, still all well and good, then the wind backed to the North and died off leaving us wallowing around with sails slapping about wondering what had happened.

It seemed like time to get the spinnaker out, but first we dropped the main to give the gennaker a chance to fill properly, it helped a bit but still not very comfortable so I got everything ready for putting the spinnaker up in 12knts of wind from behind – ideal for our big colourful sail.  By the time everything was ready and we had a cup of tea to make sure the wind had come back and increased to F6 so we doing over 8knts with only the gennaker – good job we did not get the spinnaker up, it would have been a nightmare getting it down again in that wind.

The wind stayed at F6 for the rest of the way with top wind speeds of 28knts – the forecast said F3 or 4!!!.  We got to the Camel Estuary and the Doom Bar at 17:00, perfect timing to head into the harbour for the 17:30 gate opening.  Fortunately we rang the harbour the day before to let them know we were coming so they had allocated a space for us, because there were nearly 20 boats all heading into the estuary at the same time.  The harbour staff did a great job of getting everybody safely inside.

Visitors South of Milford Haven	Padstow Harbour in the Sunshine

We have had a day off today (Saturday) to get the boat washed, do a few little jobs, laundry etc.  Our friends Jean and John rang yesterday to let us know they are flying out to join us in the Isles of Scilly – we are really looking forward to seeing them again and the weather forecast looks very good for the next few days so we are hopeful of having a great time.  We are leaving Padstow tomorrow morning for a 70nm trip to the Isles of Scilly, the forecast is NE F4-5 so hopefully they have got it right because that is as good as it gets.

Hi all Sue here

As usual the Captain has said it all!! The passage from Ramsey he mentioned around Langness Point was horrendous, I thought there was a poltergeist on board throwing things at me!! I made sure everything was well packed in before we left Castletown for Holyhead but we still got quite a battering around the Skerries. I seem to remember making a deal that if we sold the house I wouldn’t have to go out in rough seas anymore!! I suppose that’s the Irish sea for you, it never does what its meant to, the forecast said sea state slight but it was definitely rough!!

I enjoyed our stay in Holyhead as it gave me time to catch up with friends and I even managed to do ladies who lunch a couple of times, don’t think this is in Chris budget anywhere so no doubt it will go against sues miscellaneous account!! I have decided that I am no good at saying goodbye to people, I always end up in tears, but it was still very nice of our friends to give us such a good send off. Some were even on the breakwater waving us off, very much appreciated.

After a couple more lumpy passages we had a very nice sail from Milford Haven to Padstow, with the Dolphins as usual making it more special. I don’t think I will ever tire of seeing them swimming and showing of around the boat. Chris tried his hand a fishing again and got quite excited when he thought he’d caught a big one. I slowed the boat down while he carefully reeled in his catch, a big lump of seaweed!! No doubt he will keep trying and I will continue to report on his progress!! Perhaps if anyone has any tips for him you could email them to us.

We are of to Isles of Scilly tomorrow so hope weather forecast is right. Really looking forward to our friends joining us there, Have been to Tescos to stock up on supplies, well mainly alcohol!! I was quite impressed Tescos run a shuttle bus from the marina, it was probably worth their while though considering the amount we bought. No drinking tonight though as long day tomorrow.