Five leave at Five (am!)

Thursday 16 July 

Part 1: What a send off!

Well the time has finally come to set off on our voyage down to the Canary Islands and we had quite the send off.

On Wednesday evening there were more people on our boat than we’ve ever had.

All our crew arrived, excited to be off – that’s Penny, Mark and Sam – and many others who came to see La Bamba and wish her well before she heads off. 

Rosemary kindly drove Sam down, and Mark arrived with Peter, Charlie, Suzie, Max and Noel; Luke came down with Apple and their two children, Lucas and Max, and Jess joined in too. 

We had 15 people on the boat eating pizzza and watching the game – never mind England, we can try again in another 4 years,,,

We got some sleep, got up around 4.15 to get the boat ready and left at 5 before the sunrise .

Best of all, Esme, Luke, (& Molly and Dolly) came down from Winchester (!) and Jess and Tony came bright and early to see us off. And it’s thanks to them we have these wonderful pre-dawn photos.

The wind has died off a bit (11-15kts) and the direction is bit too behind us, so we won’t be breaking any records this time.

The dawn was so beautiful 

Goodbye England, La Bamba won’t see you again this year – if all goes to plan….

Part 2: A lumpy passage

Lymington to Guernsey 90 nms

The sea was rather confused with wind over Spring tides and we had cold pizza and/ Sam’s porridge for breakfast.

The wind was from the back port quarter as there was too much North in this Easterly and it only freshened to 15-18knts so we rolled a bit and wished we had our Yankee bent on. Poor Mark felt a bit worse for wear.

Once the tide turned the waves flattened out a bit and we got Lily up as the wind was now only 12kts. She was a bit reluctant to unwind again – we need a soft shackle thinks David.

As we approached the top of Normandy the wind died pretty firmly and we had to put the motor on if we wanted to avoid Cherbourg (which I did!) and make it to Guernsey before midnight!

Fortunately we had the Alderney race in its full spate of 8 knots of tide with us and we stormed through the boiling seas at up to 15 knots over the ground!

Off Alderney we saw the most amazing phenomenon – rain! (We’ve had virtually no rain in our garden for 4 weeks now)

Approaching Guernsey the wind returned and we furled out the jib to sail the last few miles.

St Peter Port is such a pretty town to approach and we ended up on the ferry dock (it’s a full port tonight) right next to our favourite restaurant, Pier 17, where we enjoyed a delicious dinner.

Well done crew! We made it across the channel. After such a long day, and needing to change our headsail, we are going to rest up on friendly Guernsey tomorrow.