It’s
been 3 months since we wrote up the web page and in that time we’ve
covered, slowly, some 1200 odd miles and seen some of the varied
coastline of our own country for the first time. In the early days of
this trip, when libraries were more common, there seemed little point
in writing as the journey felt somehow tenuous, as though it wasn’t
real – possibly because everything was familiar
The
drama started as we left Quayside at 6am, casually reversing out of
the berth and into the river without checking we suddenly found
ourselves confronted with a tug towing a ship up to the scrap metal
yard and just made it across the river to avoid them before settling
down to the trip. The days that followed saw us exploring the local
anchorages, so familiar to everyone else in the yard and so foreign
to us, before seizing the easterly wind and heading on down to Poole.
Leaving the anchorage the next day and chancing our luck over a
narrow and shallow piece of channel under power, Bee who happened to
go below, shouted up that the engine temp. was very hot.
Unfortunately this coincided with us running aground and me trying to
reverse off. In fact I had just succeeded when she called and as her
next shout was to warn of smoke coming from said engine she had no
choice but to switch the engine off. So we promptly drifted back onto
the mud and lay beam on to the channel, effectively blocking it…..
Perhaps unwisely we opened the engine cover but eventually we
established the smoke was, in fact, steam but as we blocking the
channel used by a local ferry we contacted the HM and got ourselves
towed out of the way. In the end the problem turned out to be a
jubilee clip that had come adrift and shed the coolant. We repaired,
refilled and headed into the harbour for the night. A very swish,
varnished yacht lay near by and the owners came along to see us,
remarking in passing that the boat was Bloodhound, owned previously
by the Duke of E and we were welcome to look her over tomorrow.
However the visit didn’t materialise and we left heading the
following day for the West Country.
We arrived at Dartmouth around
2am in a blow, with no large scale chart, hearts thumping and crashed
through the narrow entrance and into comparative quiet. As it was
still dark and we were unable to locate any visitor’s buoys we tied
to a vacant MOD lump and slept for a few hours before heading
upstream. Eventually we settled on a buoy opposite a viaduct where,
over the next few days, we were entertained by the tourist steam
engine bellowing photogenic clouds of steam through the trees as it
made its twice daily journey.
From
there onto the Yealm, Fowey and then Helford to meet up with Nige and
Jude, fellow cruisers from our last trip. They live overlooking the
Helford in an idyllic spot and the first night we rowed ashore we
were greeted by a garden of wild primroses,bluebells,daffs and
wonderful smells.
Toots
came with us and spent the evening wandering around with a tail in
the air with happiness. A gathering of their friends and family
included us and the Sunday afternoon was taken with a boisterous game
of football from which two stars emerged – Bee as the top scorer
and Dyson, who at 70+ was a powerhouse of defending. Great afternoon.
We also met up with Brad and Jo, Isaac and Ruby from Lilly B. and
spent the evening chatting, drinking and catching
up. A last job was to help bring N&J’s boat down from Gweek and
onto their buoy opposite their house. The channel to and from Gweek
is tortuous and shallow even at high springs and had me wondering how
the place ever became so popular. Actually, like many of the “names”
we visited, it surprised us by being much larger than we’d thought
and, possibly because of that, we were under-awed by the whole place.
We’d
also snuck a quick trip into Falmouth and up the Fal which was
probably our favourite place. We stopped at the Marina at Falmouth
and decided to go looking for Steve and Marilyn, last seen in Nova
Scotia but every where we called had no knowledge of where they were
although they claimed the name to be familiar. Finally calling at a
swish yard and getting the same answer we were directed to a smaller,
cheaper yard across the river. As we pedalled through the propped up
boats we spotted Spray Venture and banged imperiously on the hull,
raising a startled Marilyn to peer over the side to see us grinning
and cavorting at having finally tracked them down.
Onto
the Scillies. Much has been said about the islands and everyone we
spoke to enthused about them but they did little for us and although
we stayed perhaps 10 days it felt as though we were filling in time.
We had such interesting trips between islands as fog descends within
minutes leaving you peering around listening for sounds that stir the
heart and emotions – surf, engines or the bell on a buoy…..
Curiously weeks later I was reading a sailing book written in the
1880’s and the author too felt they were over sold and hadn’t
lived up to the hype.
We
had a couple of longish journeys ahead: Scillies to Wales and Wales
to Scotland. Longish in that they offer few places to hole up and the
first one crosses the Bristol Channel. We opted for Milford Haven as
it had an easy entrance and wasn’t too far east. MH was a
revelation and once the industrial section had been left behind we
found ourselves meandering along a wonderful river, between woods,
rock, fields and sheep. True the tide runs hard but we had a number
of great anchorages and to ourselves. MH also offers free pontoons at
various points and we tied up to one a few miles in from the entrance
readying ourselves for the push north but there is little to
recommend this particular one as a swell works its way in and the
boat can roll heavily. The journey north took us through the islands
of Skomer and Skokholm where the tide rules and puffins abound and we
anchored in a small bay to await the return of the favourable tide
and then onto Fishguard for the night. The wind was light and
variable the next day as we headed off for N Wales. Plans changed and
changed again as the wind dropped, veered and the tide turned. A
decision to round Anglesey was aborted as we realised the tidal gates
would be all against us and we’d spend the next 3 days battling
seas and then Bee spotted a little bay called Port Dinllaen and less
than 15 miles from the southern entrance to the Menai Straits. Both
Reeds and Libby Purves (whose book
“One Summer’s Grace” we dip into for bits about the area we’re
in) write Dinllaen off as an anchorage for poor holding but the Rocna
we bought before we left has been everything we could have asked for.
Little we did we know the big test was about to arrive. Cruising
along into the last two miles before we turn Hannah was hit by a
gathering wind as the pleasant Force 4 escalated to a 7 in minutes
and that was protected by the adjacent headland. As we turned into
the bay and thus into the wind we dropped the main and crept in under
motor………….and crept………..and finally dropped the anchor.
40 metres plus of chain screamed out, the anchor bit and Hannah came
up head to wind happily and we rejoiced in our good fortune. It blew
hard that night but we remained in position and slept soundly. Well
that’s not quite true ‘cos ahead lay the southern entrance to the
Menai………and the wind was SW meaning we were heading into the
entrance on a lee shore. The channel shifts and the buoy positions
with it….was I nervous………too bleedin’ true I was. Should we
go in under sail or motor (I chose motor- mistake as we rolled badly)
and my nervousness was accelerated when I misread the buoy sequence
and headed inside instead of outside of the first mark. But half an
hour later we were in and in calmer water but the only two anchorages
looked distinctly iffy and we opted for the marina by Caernarfon
Castle. A fine choice as we were not only treated very well by the
Berthing Master Mark but he has reams of very useful info on the
entrance but also on the Menai Strait itself, the traversing of which
depends a careful timing. Luckily a couple of local boats were
heading to Conwy and offered to show us the way and the following day
we all left in convoy………except we nearly didn’t as I
completely misjudged the effect of the flood tide on the narrow
entrance to the harbour and found that despite full revs and a tiller
hard over it was quite obvious we were going to T-bone the wall on
the other side……….how strange that time stands still in
these moments as, engine now going hard astern, we waited to see if
we would avoid disaster – snapped bowsprit, boat pinned up against
a wall before being swept into a shallow area whilst the Monday
morning loafers looked on………. But we did back off, we did get
everything under a control and we did slide smoothly through the
entrance under a visibly nervous berthing master. The trip up was
uneventful after that until we cleared the two bridges the wind
picked up and we were faced with a series of mast shaking gybes as we
followed a snaking channel. By now all but one of our escorts had
left us and we followed him across his favourite shortcut…the
depths dropped and continued to drop and still our man ploughed on
his gaze glued to his chart plotter, following his boats progress on
the screen as we careered along behind him. He knew his stuff, knew
our depth and led us safely, if a little worriedly (on our behalf) to
the entrance of Conwy. The very smart marina had been primed for our
arrival by a friend who also happens to be a policeman and so we
closed the entrance and called them…. wind is gusting, entrance is
narrow, marina is FULL of expensive, white plastic and there isn’t
a lot of room to manoeuvre……..I chickened out and we headed
upstream and picked up a municipal buoy where we remained for a week
visiting Lindy and Mark and Lindy’s parents, David and Mary Ann
before heading north for Scotland via the Isle of Man.
Not much we
can say about the latter other than our departure from Port Erin
coincided with a growing wind that had us embayed and Hannah clawing
her way out under heavily reefed main and straining engine, burying
her bowsprit before aiming for the moon and all on board wondering
what on earth we were doing…
We
arrived at Loch Ryan after a frustrating trip, a theme that has been
common actually as the engine hours will confirm. Loch Ryan has
Stranraer at its head and we anchored for a few days before heading
in. The Harbour Master turned out to be from Yorkshire and moved
boats around to accommodate
us. The harbour is being dredged to put in a pontoon for visiting
yachts so we had to time our arrival and wait until the dredger had
headed off to sea before entering. We stayed a few days as I wanted
to head off to say final goodbyes to a friend who had died and say a
quick hello to Pete, Sarah and Evan plus various other people I
hadn’t seen for almost 30 years.
That
was about a month ago and since then we have wandered around the west
coast of Scotland, found somewhere to winter (Campbeltown on Kintyre)
had a quick cruise around Arran and up the Kyle’s of Bute before
heading around the Mull of Kintyre on up to Gigha.
From
there an exhilarating sail up the Sound of Islay, between Islay and
Jura, where our speeds under a reefed mizzen, stays’l and spitfire
reached an exhilarating 9+knots thanks to 6 knots of tide. Progress
was going well but a glance of our shoulder saw a rapidly moving
cloud and as we approached the entrance to Loch Tarbert, on Jura we
were hit by the squall which used the adjacent mountain to accelerate
and hit us at a good 50 knots. Hannah heeled and kept on heeling as
the bulwarks and then the bottom edge of the toe boards went under
water until we clawed the mizzen down to bring some order to the
boat. Made it into a bit of shelter and tested the Rocna again. Once
the wind eased we worked our way up the Loch and into a pool of brown
peaty water, surrounded by rocks for the night. Spent a few nights in
the Loch but moved into the inner part after the second night for
complete isolation – no houses no roads. We came back through the
Islay sound and worked our way, over the next few days up past but
not through the Gulf of Corryvrecken but through the Cuan Sound and
onto Oban before heading up to Tobermory and onto The Small Isles.
Canna
was our choice for a few nights, chatting to other cruisers who all
seem to be from the Solent for some reason before heading up to Loch
Harport on Skye. Quiet anchorage to ourselves really, although we
were visited by a lovely Dutch gaff ketch some 80 feet long. Not sure
what it is about skippers on these small ships but they rarely appear
friendly or even able to acknowledge your presence although that
wasn’t true of the crew. Ho hum. We decided to leave Gesto Bay on a
sunny Monday morning and within seconds of Bee starting to haul the
anchor she realised we had a problem as an anchor could be clearly
seen dangling from our chain some 2 metres under the boat (we were
anchored in 5 or 6 metres so we knew it wasn’t ours) There followed
2 hours of hard work as we laboured to raise a discarded mooring
anchor complete with riser and bridle. We had lines attached to
anchor, lines attached to chain and to our joy the shackles came
undone with little effort. Finally with the unwanted anchor hanging,
but secure, we set off to accost a local fishing boat across the
Loch. “Would they like it otherwise we would dump it” Alarmed at
the thought we may do so on their fishing ground they gently came
alongside and removed the item and any other bits we no longer
needed. We had intended to take it out to sea but I guess wherever we
dumped it may have fouled someone’s fishing ground so it is
probably ashore in a twee garden somewhere.
Whilst
in Canna we were told by several boats about their experiences in the
Western Isles or Outer Hebrides. It was generally negative, too
bleak, too many rocks etc. We obviously decided to go although the
only charts we have are small scale and no use whatsoever in
negotiating Loch entrances strewn
with
rocks. But the Pilot Books are and whilst they often lack lat and
long it is possible, with care, to work your way into these places.
And what places they are. So far we have only been here about a week
but we are bowled over. Firstly it reminds us of Newfie but without
the prospect of 8’ of ice in the winter and secondly we have the
anchorages to ourselves. Not even a mooring buoy to encourage
visitors and we love it. At the moment we’re in a small creek in
Loch Stockinish on Harris. The entrance has a few rocks to dodge but
absolutely nothing to worry about but the Loch opens up after you
slide through a 27 metre gap. A few more houses around the Loch than
the last few but already we keep looking at small crofts and musing……
But
we have moved on again and are now in Stornoway and, like so many
before us, bemused by the huge contrast with the rest of the Western
Isles. Perhaps we should have realised that the appearance of an
occasional street lamp in a sparsely populated hamlet meant we may
soon come across more…but this place is a real town with every
amenity you could wish for. That’s not meant to be derogatory
either but it really bears no resemblance to the rest of the places
we’ve visited. Has a great feel to the place, very friendly people
who take delight in telling us the Hebridean Celtic Festival starts
next week along with the Traditional Boat Gathering and assume we’ve
arrived early for the latter………..although, true to form, we
will have left before either starts.
I’ve
already written about our anchor and can only reiterate it has been a
brilliant investment and has never let us down yet irrespective of
the bottom. It digs through weed and finds the mud below and even
came up once with a small boulder lodged between its flukes.
Whenever
we have needed to reef the main I find myself gazing up at the sail,
noting how well it sets and draws and say each time how glad I am we
got a professional sail-maker to supply them. They have been a joy to
work with and the deeper reefs and the spitfire jib give enormous
satisfaction both in raising and it the way they work so well
together.
And
finally… Bee is rowing ashore with Toots hanging over the bow
dangling a front paw millimetres from the water. I’m on the shore
and, as Bee is going off course, I call out for her to pull hard on
her left oar….she does…and Toots finds the boat is no longer
underneath her but the water is and she is deposited unceremoniously
into very cold water……….from where resurfacing at high speed
and without assistance she appears to propel herself from the depths
back onto the dinghy……