Dolphins came too!

Weymouth to Dartmouth 56nm

Saturday 12 July 

We got the 10am bridge and set South to clear Portland Bill, and a little bit further to clear the race.

We thought, hey ho, the wind is pretty light, and coming from off the back beam direction… the sea is very flat… maybe we should give Lily a go

So we did, and all was well

But then David said he’d rigged it slightly wrong (the drum was facing the wrong way) so we wound her in

But the sheets got wrapped

So David had a rather hot time on the foredeck doing some knitting…The wind was very light, but we decided to give it one more go…I prayed to the wind Gods…did a little whistling…and the wind filled from 5 knots to fully 12!

And we stormed along at 8 knots and I touched 9 – really lovely!

However all good things come to an end and the wind died, The good news was that when we wound Lily in, it went very well – no horrible tangle. We put the engine on for a while

Then the wind filled in from the front and we rolled out the jib and were glad to turn the engine off again, making 5-6 knots in a 7 knot wind. I decided to celebrate the wind Gods with a glass of Prosecco, and…

….then we had some visitors!

and more and more – on and off, all the way to Dartmouth

So when the wind decided to die forever we didn’t mind as we were entertained by pods off both bows

and guillemots sitting on the water teaching their young how to fish

We glided into Dartmouth at around 7 pm and moored at Noss Marina in Kingswear (other side of the river) as it’s the weekend and Dartmouth is always quite full, because it’s such a magical place.

The exciting news is that Paul, Jemma and Elara and Jemma’s parents are visiting us tomorrow. And then my cousin Penny is coming to cross the Channel with us on Monday – weather permitting.