A few facts and figures

It's interesting to put together some facts and figures at the end of a trip, especially so when the trip took six months to complete so, here we go.
Starting from here on 3rd April

Leaving Torquay.

We logged 3133 nautical miles

Of the 169 days of the trip we were underway on 110 days, spending a total of 607 hours and 44 minutes underway.

Of those hours 306 hours and 15 minutes were spent under sail and 301 hours and 29 minutes under engine, including a lot of hours motor sailing, which we did not log separately.

Those engine hours used approximately 656 litres of diesel (approximately because we have yet to top the tank up so an estimate is included for the last fill). We paid wildly varying prices for diesel as there have been big changes in diesel prices during the trip. Not surprisingly the best prices were at fishing harbours and the most expensive at marinas.

During the 169 day trip:

88 nights were spent in marinas or harbours with pontoons to lie alongside (including when we left the boat for our excursion home or for a bed ashore, we were still paying for the boat). Cheapest £18 (Peterhead), most expensive £32.63 (Chichester and Brighton).

25 nights were spent on moorings. Cheapest free, most expensive £20 (Beaulieu River)

3 nights were spent lying alongside harbour walls.

47 nights were spent at anchor, all free, and we only experienced one problem with dragging.

6 nights were spent at sea on passage.

Finally arriving back here on 19th September

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Leaving the Solent - going home!

Waiting an extra night at Warsash on Monday was a good move. The wind blew really hard in the afternoon and overnight, so much so that our new this year LED strobe light for the life ring was flicked out of its holder and smashed against the transom! More expense!

 

After a lie in on Tuesday morning we got showers at Warsash Sailing Club and, newly cleansed, treated ourselves to lunch at the club while waiting for the tide to turn so we could get out of our berth. In the afternoon we sailed for Cowes with a strong westerly wind. With just a reefed genoa it took us an hour to cross and moor on the Whitegates pontoon on the east side of the river, where we had stopped for lunch on Sunday. With no means of getting ashore unless we blew the dinghy up we chilled out for the rest of the afternoon, not least for David to try to get rid of the cold and cough which he had developed over the weekend. Too much contact with the rest of humanity! We arranged our last gathering of friends, agreeing to meet John and Carol, Stephen and Anthea and Nick and Jill at the Duke of York in West Cowes for lunch on Wednesday.

 

We assumed that we would get a water taxi ashore in the morning, only to find that there were no water taxis operating on the river that day. Nick came to the rescue with his rubber dinghy from East Cowes Sailing Club, a very short row to the pontoon. We picked up David's prescription, which had been sitting in the pharmacy for over a week waiting for collection, then went back to the Bredon residence to see their newly acquired land next the house where they plan to put a garage/bike store/boat bits store!

 

Heading across to the Duke of York we discovered that foot passengers now have to pay to use the floating bridge, but not if you have a bus pass. The admiral was upset! After lunch it was throwing it down, we got pretty wet, even with waterproofs, making our way back to the car in East Cowes, which didn't do the captain's chest cough any good at all. We gratefully accepted the offer of a night ashore with Nick and Jill rather than face another soaking getting back to the boat.

 

With a reasonable weather window developing over the next few days we developed a plan to head west as soon as the tide turned off Cowes Green, heading for Swanage, which would be a beat into a SW force 4 to 5. This would then leave us a bit of a lie in on Friday morning, leaving Swanage at lunchtime with a fair tide past Portland Bill and a wind veering NW or North and easing giving us a reach across Lyme Bay with a bail out to Weymouth if we felt too tired on Friday morning. We would get to Torbay in the early hours of Saturday morning but planned to anchor in Anstey's Cove, a mile or so North of Torbay, so we could arrive in Torquay refreshed in the afternoon.

 

As planned, Nick dropped us back aboard Lacerta on Friday morning and we left at 1250, after ringing the harbour authority as no one had called to collect any mooring fees. Too honest or what? Off Cowes Green we hoisted the main with one reef and unfurled a reefed genoa for the beat westwards, always very satisfying with a strong favourable tide to help. As we approached Yarmouth with the tide getting stronger the apparent wind increased and we took in another reef in the main. We opted to take the North channel after Hurst Narrows as the captain, doing all the winching of course, couldn't face short tacking up the Needles channel or the lumpy sea that we would find when we got to the Bridge buoy. All worked to plan other than hitting some overfalls going too close inshore at Hengistbury Head. We were anchored, well inshore in a slightly rolly anchorage by 18.40.

Approaching Hurst Castle

Swanage, looking less rolly than it was!

The captain doing the passage plan to Hopes Nose.

 

On Friday we left the anchorage at 1300 in a calm after a rain squall killed the wind. Around Anvil Point heading South of the St Albans Head overfalls we were motoring into a head wind as anticipated. Between St Albans Head and Portland Bill the wind veered enough to put the sails up, first with reefs, then with all the reefs out, then, as the wind dropped further we furled the genoa and were back to motor sailing!

Sunset, Lyme Bay, the last one while we were at sea.

 

We never got the predicted veer in the wind to the North so continued to motor sail westwards. We also never got the smooth or slight sea, it stayed decidedly lumpy. When the wind did pick up enough to sail the sea prevented us from maintaining enough way so we stuck with the engine and motor sailing. The autopilot decided it had had enough and the drive kept cutting out so we had to hand steer the last few hours, mainly the admiral, giving the captain a bit more time to rest. We passed the wreck buoys East of Hopes Nose at about 2300 and found our way into Anstey's Cove by the light of the stars, anchoring under the cliffs at 0035 on Saturday morning. Nearly home! Only 4 miles to do in the morning. It was such a clear night that we poured ourselves a wee dram and sat in the cockpit for a while looking at the stars.

Anstey's Cove anchorage.

 

Saturday morning was bright and sunny with only a light breeze. By mid morning, when we were enjoying a late breakfast, Anstey's Cove was buzzing. The cafe was open and doing a good trade and a group of girls were starting a coasteering experience in wet suits and helmets climbing and jumping off rocks into the sea. By late morning there were at least another 10 boats anchored in the bay enjoying the sunshine so we chilled out and did a bit of boat cleaning, ready to enter Torquay Harbour in the afternoon. Just as we were getting ready to leave an orange RIB appeared with Richard, friends James and Emily and godson Harry on board, Richard in the bow waving a bottle of champagne, a splendid welcome back!

The coasteers hit the water en mass!

Harry, our youngest guest yet.

Harry and Emily.

Team Crikey head back to Torquay.

Getting ready to leave Anstey's Cove

A gentle sail for the last leg.

The last leg, Thatcher Rock and the Orestone in the background. The weather held fine to welcome us back.

Minor hiccup, our welcome party needs a tow for a while!

Celebrating the journey's end.

Taking the sails down for the last time.

Back to Torquay harbour.

In our old berth, saved for us by MDL.

 

And so it's ended. The trip which we have been planning for a few years and which has occupied the last six months comes to a glorious end. We have seen and experienced so much it is very difficult to decide on favourites but we are back in one piece, the boat has looked after us very well, despite a few decks leaks and we have had a memorable experience.

For the first time since the first post the blog is written sat at our dining table overlooking the trees and hills of Torquay with the sea in the background rather than at the forefront of our view.

For those who are interested we will do one more post on this trip with some of the statistics, when we've worked them all out!

We wrote the blog mainly to remind ourselves of the highlights of the trip and keep them in the right order but if you've been following us throughout the trip we hope you have enjoyed reading our posts.

The Admiral and her Captain

 

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More socialising in the Solent

Last Monday we left the River Medina and sailed to Lymington in warm sunshine to meet some more friends. By 1455 we had picked up one of the fore and aft river moorings close to the Town Quay and welcomed our first guest aboard. Colin Merrett found us on Facebook, we had not seen him since our days sailing 470's, nearly 40 years ago. Good to see that, apart from going greyer and being wider round the middle he was still the same Colin with a fantastic sense of humour that we remembered from all those years ago. After a beer with Colin we then collected Clare and Neil Carden and Pat Farrell, who we had sailed with in the Caribbean in January of this year, switching to g&t's as the nearest equivalent to the Caribbean rums! The 5 of us rowed ashore in our rather overloaded dinghy to be treated to dinner at Neil and Clare's, a great evening reminiscing and catching up on events. Neil dropped us back to the quay and Pat to the ferry to take him back to Yarmouth.
The next day, after stocking up at M&S simply food we headed out through Hurst Narrows to Totland Bay, where we anchored off the beach to meet Pat again for lunch at his house, which is just at the top of the coastal path steps leading up from the beach, what a great place to live.

Pat waves us off from the beach.

After lunch Pat saw us off from the beach. The water was very clear and calm and the skipper decided to take to the water to see if he could see what state the propellor and anode was in after nearly six months sailing. The admiral persuaded him that it wasn't worth getting his wet suit all salty so he went in just swim shorts. Big mistake! This is not the Caribbean, the water was freezing, much too cold to be able to breath properly for diving under the boat so a quick lap around the boat was all he managed. Being rinsed down with a bowl of warm water was very pleasant though!

Not to be repeated in these waters!

Leaving Totland Bay we headed back into the Solent and into Newtown Creek where we anchored in Clamerkin Lake, which was surprisingly busy. Plenty of places to anchor but all the mooring buoys were occupied. After a quiet night, the next morning we planned to head over to the Beaulieu river but as the sun came out we decided that we were as well off enjoying the sun and the peace where we were as moving to the other side of the Solent. We spent the afternoon reading and sunbathing then, as the wind died in the late afternoon we rowed the dinghy up to Spur Lake, through the ruined timbers of the old sea wall and as far up the creek as we could go before we ran out of water.

Through the old sea wall.

On the way back we drifted down wind so as not to disturb the seals resting on the bank and got quite close to them. A fine end to the day.

Seal watching.

On Thursday morning we sailed for Warsash, where we were due to meet Penny and Bob Marchant, who we met originally in Tenerife. Bob is a keen birdwatcher and was keen to find out what we had seen on our voyage. With the wind in the East and the tide ebbing we had everything against us but the wind strength was just right for full sail. We sailed straight across to the North shore then tacked to the East in the shallower water out of the main tide. By lunchtime we were moored to the Harbourmaster's pontoon at Warsash in time for a spot of lunch before Penny and Bob came on board. By 1500 we were under way again, bound for Marchwood where Richard and Anne Vie had arranged a mooring for us to leave Lacerta on so we could have a couple of nights ashore with them and visit the Southampton boat show. At 1700 we were alongside the Marchwood YC pontoon to offload our gear and an hour later Lacerta was securely attached to a mooring at Bury, upstream from Marchwood.

Container ship being swung off the Marchwood pontoon.

As always when we get together with the Vies we had a very sociable evening over dinner and a couple of bottles of wine followed by a night in a proper bed!
Fortified by a good breakfast we caught the train from Romsey on Friday morning to Southampton and the boat show. Unusually for us we didn't go aboard any yachts and didn't pay our usual homage to the Rustler 42, instead spending hours talking to sailmakers about new sails, after nearly 3000 miles on this trip plus the trips in the previous 5 years our mainsail and genoa are starting to look tired, and the captain was never happy with the shape in the first place! We also bought a new vhf radio with a bigger and brighter screen and a remote handset for the cockpit. Tired but satisfied we returned to Romsey where we were joined by Anne and Richard's daughter Charlotte and celebrated Anne's birthday with more wine. Terrible influence these Vies.
On Saturday while Anne and Charlotte went to the Romsey show and did horsey things Richard kindly took us shopping to Waitrose so we could stock up for our next round of visitors. We were due in Ocean Village in the afternoon to collect Debbie's September FLP order and pick up our son, Richard and his friends Cathie and Matt for a day's sailing. Proceedings were delayed by a great aerobatic display by the Red Arrows, which we watched while rafted alongside Harvard.

Red arrows entertainment.

The delay meant we picked up Richard, Cathie and Matt at 1815 and headed off to the Beaulieu river where we picked up a mooring in the dark. The next morning we were able to read that the buoy was intended for a max length of 18ft. Good job it was a quiet night! We were still charged a mind boggling £20 for mooring for the night. If we had known it was that much we would have anchored.
Sunday was a busy day. We sailed from Beaulieu to Cowes with Matt on the helm where we stopped for lunch, avoiding any charges this time. We logged 3000 miles on the trip during this sail. With an increasing wind we headed back to Southampton to drop our visitors off at Ocean Village before sailing back down Southampton Water to Warsash for a night on the Harbourmaster's pontoon.
On Monday morning more friends, Debby and Hugh Myers and Caroline and Nick Martin came on board for tea and a chat, another nice catch up session. Our plan had been to sail in the afternoon to Cowes but with an ever increasing wind and force 7 to severe gale 9 forecast we opted to stay put for another night. At least there's an opportunity to catch up with the blog. Cowes tomorrow when the wind has died down is now the plan!

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Catching up with old friends

While we were anchored at Itchenor Reach the admiral made contact with Debbie and Mike Wigmore, who we have known for some years as Mike's father used to be David's GP and the two Debbie's had been involved in international women's sailing events. Debbie and Mike live in a splendid house overlooking the water at Birdham so we spent a lovely evening on Wednesday with them catching up on what we and our offspring have been up to.

Also on Wednesday we met up with very old friends (that is we've known them for a very long time, not that they are ancient!), Jill and Nick on their Sadler 26 'Zulu' and Anthea and Stephen on their Moody 42 'Sir Jasper IV'. We joined them in Chichester Yacht Harbour, the best showers we have been in for a long time! A happy hour or so was spent over beers in our cockpit catching up. They were on an Island Sailing Club rally including a theatre visit, very civilised.

Zulu.

Sir Jasper

On Thursday we locked out of the marina and promptly ran aground in the entrance channel! Despite the lock master recording 1.8m in the channel we managed to find a lump at 1.2m! As it was soft mud and a rising tide we were soon able to wriggle our way into deeper water and be on our way. Destination Bembridge and meeting up with yet more friends. This time Jane and Pete Best who were sailing on a friend's boat and Anne and Richard on 'Harvard', a splendid Rustler 36. Jane and Pete we know from sailing in the Midlands and our children sailing Optimists and 420s. David was at university with Richard and we have been in regular contact over the years. Anne and Richard were responsible for us owning Lacerta and doing this trip as we had a fantastic cruise with them on Harvard to the Scilly Isles which rekindled our desire to sail bigger boats than dinghies.

Gordon Wight and his team at the marina went out of their way to look after us, being there to help with our lines and dealing with any queries. We were allocated pontoon space in Bembridge Marina for Lacerta and Harvard to lie next to each other, always a recipe for much eating and wine consumption!

Harvard arriving in Bembridge.

On Friday the Harvard and Lacerta crews decided on a walk, walking down the pontoon we saw Ron and Beth, who we had met through Nick and Jill and Stephen and Anthea, with their splendid old gaffer.

Ron and Beth and their gaffer.

The walk took us from St. Helens to Brading and across Nunwell Down to Sandown, where we had a late lunch on the seafront, then by train to Ryde where we walked through Seaview, stopping for liquid refreshment at a pub on the sea wall, and back to St. Helens and the marina. Further refreshment then required in Harvard's cockpit before dinner on Lacerta, a splendid concoction of the contents of Lacerta and Harvard's food lockers!

The view from Nunwell Down.

Saturday saw us catching up with some shopping and Debbie catching up with FLP and home accounts while waiting for enough tide in the afternoon to get out of the harbour. After a bit of classic parking by a powerboat behind us both Lacerta and Harvard extracted themselves from their windward berths and headed for Portsmouth, Harvard to Royal Clarence marina and Lacerta to anchor further up Fareham Lake in a very peaceful, and free! anchorage. As Portsmouth was to windward of Bembridge the beat saw a little friendly rivalry with each of us getting the best out of our boats. As Lacerta left Bembridge first and arrived off Portsmouth first there probably wasn't much in it.

The Portsmouth skyline.

With high pressure dominating, Sunday has proved to be a light wind day. We managed to sail, albeit slowly with the tide against us until we approached Ryde Middle bank when the wash from passing ships and powerboats proved to be too much to keep the sails full and we reverted to the engine. We entered Cowes through the new Eastern small boat channel, which appeared to be quite shallow, inside of the new stone breakwater being built to protect the harbour from North and North East winds. By 1550 we were tied up alongside the walk ashore pontoon at the Folly Inn, a first for us. Previously visiting the Folly at weekends there has never been any space on the walk ashore pontoon so it was a luxury to be able to walk up to the pub for a pint before dinner.

Cowes new breakwater under construction. Must be behind programme, working on a Sunday.

We are going to be doing some zig zagging around the Solent visiting more friends before ending up at Marchwood on Thursday to visit the Southampton boat show on Friday. More of that in the next episode!

 

 

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Back to the Solent

We have moved pretty rapidly westwards along the South Coast and had some good sailing along the way. As planned we left Ramsgate on the afternoon tide on Saturday for a short passage to Dover. We knew we would have an early start the next morning from Dover so the main criteria was to get there in the light and early enough to get settled down for a reasonable sleep before the alarm went off at 0400!

Approaching Dover

The passage was quiet, a light wind from the East and a fair tide but we still needed a bit of push from the engine. France was clearly in sight as we approached those white cliffs and made contact with Dover Port Control, who were most helpful. They picked us up on their radar so were expecting our first call in and remained in contact until we had crossed the harbour and were making our way into the tidal dock at the marina. We didn't make much use of the facilities, other than the shore power, as we got dinner ready then went to bed.

Dover East entrance and port control.

Dover West entrance from inside.

We left Dover at 0520 on Sunday, not much ferry traffic about so leaving was easy and we had a strong west going tide straight outside the harbour. With the wind in the north we hoisted the cruising spinnaker and were making a fast passage time as daylight came and the sun came out. We carried the fair tide well past Dungeness, which we passed at over 8 knots in hot sunshine! The tide turned part way across Rye Bay so we kept inshore, keeping inshore of the 10m contour to avoid the strongest tide so we were still making good progress. We kept the spinnaker up until we were off Eastbourne and approaching Beachy Head when the wind dropped and we had to drop the spinnaker and revert to the engine for a while. We were close inshore off the cliffs around Beachy Head, which we think are much more spectacular than the cliffs of Dover! Off Newhaven the wind came back from the north west allowing us to sail the last bit to Brighton, arriving at 1600, 2 hours ahead of schedule with warm sunshine all the way. This must rank as one of our best sails yet! Brighton Marina, despite being the biggest in the UK, lacks character. Although the restaurants and bars were all humming on Sunday evening it all seemed very artificial compared to Ramsgate and many of our other stops on our trip.

Dungeness point and nuclear power station.

Beachy Head.

The lighthouse dwarfed by the cliffs.

The next leg, from Brighton to Chichester, revolved around ensuring we had a fair tide through the Looe channel, close south of Selsey Bill, the last major headland before the Solent. We intended another early start to get over the bar at Chichester before the ebb tide got too strong there but a chance chat with another couple of sailors revealed that silting up of the Brighton entrance channel meant that we couldn't get out when we planned. This turned out for the best as at 0700, when we would have been at sea, there was a huge thunderstorm and torrential rain! This passed over by 0945, when we left, giving us a grey, drizzly day with a fresh northerly breeze. Although we were back to full waterproofs with a flat sea we made another fast passage. The Admiral, on the helm while the captain was asleep, blasted through the Looe channel at 8 to 9 knots with the lee rail well underwater needing a reef but not able to manage that on her own!

Evidence! The lee rail well under!

Although we left Brighton 4 hours after we had planned we were only a couple of hours late at Chichester Bar. We had a strong tide against us in the entrance channel but were anchored in one of our favourite spots, Itchenor Reach, with only the noise of the birds for company, by 1645.

Itchenor Reach anchored at low water. Yes that is mud and we are afloat!

We have had a quiet day today with a lie in in the morning and a bit of reading in the sunshine. At lunchtime, approaching high water, we took the dinghy up to Bosham and had a walk to the local Co-op and lunch (seniors special!) at a local pub. As it is spring tides most of the quayside at Bosham was underwater. At least we didn't have to cart the dinghy up any muddy slipways. Back on board for a few chores, dinner and enjoying the spectacular sunset over the still water.

Bosham quay access underwater.

In the dinghy with dry feet for a change!

Sunset.

And an hour or so later!

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