Back to Brixham

Well, we made our decision after yet another gale forecast and decided to head back to Brixham. We spent a night at Looe harbour - an unscheduled stop but the forecast SW wind turned SE and we couldn't sail round Start Point (too close to the wind). We had a warm welcome from some of the locals who remembered the 'Ros Ailither' from when she used to fish out of Looe.

We left first thing in the morning in thick fog - very eerie... We could see blobs on our radar screen showing boats half a mile away, we could hear their engines, but we couldn't see a thing. We managed to sail in light winds way past Plymouth but the wind gradually died completely and with the tide against us, we were going at 1.1 knots so fired up the engine and steamed on at 7 knots. The only land we saw was a glimpse of Prawle Point (near Salcombe) before the mist closed in again. At least we got to use our new foghorn for real - one ong blast every 2 minutes and hoping not to hear anything in return!

Amazingly, just as we approached Berry Head, blue skies appeared above us and the whole of Torbay opened up with clear visibility. We're now moored on the town quay in Brixham amidst the heritage boats and will be taking part in the trawler race this Saturday (about 1pm-ish)

waiting for the weather

waiting for the weather,
originally uploaded by rosailither.

Well, we're STILL in Falmouth, not putting many miles under our belts so far!
It has proved to be quite sociable with friends living here, our sailmaker up the road, a visit from our neighbour at Turf and friends over from Ireland to buy a boat.
Falmouth is an enormous natural harbour, one of the largest in the world and there is a surprisingly deep water channel most of the way up - 40 to 50 feet, slightly different to the Exe! There are loads of boats - cruise liners, ships, tugs and pilot boats, sailing yachts, racing Falmouth work boats, tiny dinghies and rowing stiffs.
We've been for a sail in the lower part of the harbour and motored upriver as far as Malpas, a few miles short of Truro. The river is quite narrow and secluded once you get further up, so it was a surprise to turn a corner and find ourselves face to face with an enormous ship, luckily attached to mooring buoys!
We even saw dolphins in the harbour, jumping alongside 'Ros Ailither' as we motored back down to Falmouth town at the crack of dawn one morning. After consulting our dolphin book (thank you John!), we reckon they were bottlenose dolphins, but we could be wrong...
We have also been making progress in other ways. We've finished building our main deck hatch out of iroko, which has been a temporary bodged affair for the past three years. We've taken down the chimney to give us chart room in the wheelhouse despite the fact that summer has so far failed to materialize.
We've got ourselves a new (blue) topsail, but have yet to try it out properly. We went for a trial sail out to sea yesterday and were hammering along nicely at 6 or 7 knots under sails alone but it was too windy for the topsail (we tried...).
We've shopped our fill at Trago Mills and tried nearly every variety of pasty on offer (chicken tikka, mushroom stroganoff, peppered steak...) so reckon it's nearly time to make a move...
So we're sitting here with our friend Simon in his 21 foot clinker boat (which he's also hoping to sail back to Ireland) waiting for a good forecast. So far, every day seems to bring more gale warnings for the Lundy /Fastnet areas.
The plan was to go to a boat rally in Baltimore (Ireland) this weekend but if the bad weather persists we may even head back for the Brixham trawler race this weekend. After all, we're retired now so why rush?!

Falmouth

After a weekend taking it easy in Brixham, we sailed to Plymouth and spent a night anchored off Drake's Island. We were rewarded the next morning with the spectacle of five early morning swimmers clad in purple costumes and blue hats plunging into the icy harbour waters. They must certainly be far hardier than we are...

We then went on to Falmouth, stopping briefly in Fowey for last-minute electronics installations, and on route we crossed paths with the old owner of 'Ros Ailither' out on his new (steel) fishing vessel.

We have decided against sailing straight to Ireland with easterly gales forecast for the weekend. The wind is from the right direction but we're not ready for our first gale just yet....

First stop Brixham

Dave up mast
Originally uploaded by rosailither.

Well, we've made the first step and left the Exe, in fact we were escorted out by local pirates who wanted to make sure we'd really gone.
Thanks for the send-off, folks, apologies to Topsham residents about the foghorn racket, we couldn't resist!
We had a cracking sail to Brixham, topping 6 knots under sail alone, Dave couldn't wait to climb the 'ratlines' to his favourite viewpoint..
We're here for the weekend to recover from all our leaving do's, next stop Cornwall.

Just to prove it really happened...

H&D Turf
Originally uploaded by rosailither.

Photo especially for Mike!

Mr & Mrs...

Yes, the rumours are true, Dave and I did get married on Saturday(30th April)! Sorry we couldn’t invite everybody, but we thought it would be much more fun to surprise everybody at our ‘leaving do’ in the evening.

We had a wonderful day with family at the Turf, then a fantastic evening at the Malthouse with friends. Thanks to everybody who came and gave us a farewell to remember, and apologies to those who inadvertently missed an invite.

A special thank you to all our ‘Exe Mates’ who chipped in towards the overwhelming gift of a sextant. I just hope we can learn to navigate with it in time before we reach the other side of 'the pond'. Thank you all...

In fact, we had such a good time and will miss everybody so much that we've decided not to leave after all...Only joking, we hope to be off in Ros Ailither some time this week, our first stop is likely to be Brixham. One step at a time...