Had fair winds, or no wind (motored for 8 hours or so), and made good time: 30 hours from Harwich to Den Helder. We didn't stop, felt as if we had to catch up, so pressed on, got boarded by the Dutch coastguard, apparently they ought to give lessons in how to do this to the UKBA, who seem to have a knack for getting up people's noses, whilst our experience was really nothing to complain about, they were polite and friendly throughout. Felt a bit sorry to go past the Friesland islands without stopping, it was lovely weather and the beaches are great. We almost got a favourable tide up the Elbe, but not quite, the ebb is fierce and even though it was neaps it seemed to contradict the excellent progress that had been made to bash against the current so we anchored near the river mouth, first anchorage on the right as you go in, which we shared with a German coast guard tug, for six hours before pressing on up river to the Kiel Canal. We got though the canal with 10 minutes to spare (at this time of the year 'sport' boats have to stop navigating at 2030 local time), and were tied up alongside at the Sports Haven at 1950 UTC, 3 days and 13 hours pontoon to pontoon.

off

gale has blown over, nothing found on prop so replaced fuel filter, bought new genoa sheet, fittted hydrostatic release on liferaft, got foghorn working we are finally ready to go

whither the weather

after a month of sweltering in an office found myself driving through a rainstorm to get to the boat and iffy weather since. Had hoped to get to the Kiel Canal in one hit direct from the Swale, around 4 days sailing, but the grib files showed gales on thursday, so we came to Harwich instead with gale warnings filing the airwaves.

Had good sail, occasional sunshine, ever increasing winds, set off at 0630, tied up alongside at 2010. On a long empty pontoon having declined a starboard-side-to with-a-strong-tail-wind-at -the -end-of-a-long-aisle-of-boats invitation to an insurance claim.
Ttoday was a proper shakedown with various challenges along the way, including engine dying (rubbish in propellor? continued to idle in neutral, has seemed ok since); finding that I'd forgotten to put both sheets on the genoa (this as the engine died 50m to windward of sand banks with 2m under the keel, had also omitted to remove sailcover before leaving, breaking own rule), then finding the genoa sheet and putting on the cockpit coamings from where it slithered into the deep.
Later the topping lift detached itself from the boom as we took down the sail when it crashed to the deck, causing me to give it a mighty pull which sent it above the cross trees to get into a fine tangle. (leading to another trip up the mast using ascenders on a halyard, which are fine for going up...) Finally Simon hurt hand
when we were locking in, abraison blister after following my advice on how to hold the ropes, not a serious injury but.

so tomorrow is a chance to prepare more properly and do things right and set off with washing liquid and without fish juice in the bin.

Here we go again

New standing rigging, new furling gear, some new halyards, sails serviced, engine serviced, sea cocks serviced, new switch panel next to the chart table, lots of new wiring, antifouling, new anodes, even some varnish. Brand new Baltic Pilot, gifted a couple of charts for north holland/germany, north sea charts returned from loan. CEVNI online test passed. a few more odds and sods to clear up, due a trip up the mast to align the windicator and fit the secondary forestay that I forgot to attach and the spinnaker halyard got routed the wrong side of the forestay. various odds and ends. 4 weeks off, not so long as recent years, Denmark? Sweden? Round trip? Crew? nothing certain.

circulated

We wound up in Falmouth for the winter, Mylor Yacht Harbour, then, in July this year, 2009, went to L'Aberwrac'h, North Brittany, then along the coast to St Malo, then up through the Channel Islands, then to Cherbourg, from there to Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight then day trips back to the east coast of england. We had fair winds all the way, didn't lose a single day to the weather. The photos are here. Scariest bit was not being able to see the transits when going eastbound through the channel south of the Isle de Bas, described by Tom Cunliffe as a rock strewn chamber of horrors. We had big spring tides in the Channel Islands, and found ourselves in uncharted overfalls en-route to Alderney, to the east of the Swinge. The next day the GPS had us going at between 11 and 13 knots on the way to Cherbourg.

Gola Island

We stayed in Portrush overnight where we met Andrew who had just single handed northwards up the west coast and told me that he had had 2 or 3 good days and incessant strong winds such that beafort 5 - 7 was normal. From Portrush we stayed in Sheep Haven for a night on one of the visitors moorings, it poured with rain. Then onwards to Gola which is when I was pleased that I'd installed the chart plotter - I got horribly confused trying to match up what I could see with what was on the chart, complete nightmare, the chart plotter sorted things out nicely. Here we are anchored on the south side hiding from the wind and about to get spooked by what we found on the island.

Atlantic

Finally got the bag back and headed off. We were aiming for Loch Swilly but the forecast started talking about gales so we diverted to Portrush. And ended up motoring for much of the way in a flat calm. This is a parting shot of Islay, demonstrating the 'clouds over land' effect. If I was a better person I'd straighten out the horizon. We were in the Atlantic Ocean now, with strong winds forecast, which is where we were to stay for the next 3 weeks or so.

the American Monument, Islay

west coast of Islay

An british transport policeman was reading through a bulletin of crime reports and when he read about my bag he realised it was in the lost property office, so he phoned me up and the next day we arranged for parcel force to deliver it, one of their 48 hour premium services which ended up taking four days. We killed time pleasantly with walks on the beach.

Bowmore, Islay

This is the view from the round church at the top of the steet. The church is round so that there aren't any corners for the devil to hide in. We went for the distillery tour and learned a lot about the process of whisky making. Also did the tour at Laphroaig where the guide talked more about the social history, no two tours alike.

Port Ellen, Islay

Islay is prounounced 'eyela'. Spent a few days here, crew, Mona, arrived and Neil came along for a tour of the distilleries. I arrived in time for the pub and went to the hotel bar where they had 40 single malts on display and Ian, the barman and whisky expert, on hand to offer guidance. Had an enjoyable evening following his recommendations and it was only when I tried to stand up at the end of the night that I noticed how strong some of this stuff is.

Craighouse, Jura

This turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. The people were so nice and friendly, went for a walk and nobody drove by without waving. Spent a happy evening in the pub chatting with the people who lived on the island. Stayed on a mooring buoy, currently around 10 of these with another 16 or so in the process of being put in place whilst I was there.

Sound of Jura

went from Loch Aline to Creobh (pronounced croove) which involved a trip through the Sound of Luing which is just nearby the dreaded Corryvreckan, famous for its whirlpools. I was half an hour off the top of the tide going the the Sound of Luing and already seemed to have more than 2 knots of tide and the water starting to boil. Spent a night in Creobh, which is picturesque sort of place (but it rained all the time, so the new camera stayed in its case) and one which I'd happily return to. I stayed in the marina. Going in to strange marinas on your own in a boat can be a bit of a buttock clencher, went in fine but had a pretty little wooden motor boat park up next to me and the wind kicked up and was blowing me on to her so I wasn't so sure about how it would all work out when I left, fortunately the people on board must have been wondering the same thing so they came out and gave me a hand to get away. Picture is taken on a long day's beat down the sound of Jura into a lot of wind. I don't have an anenometer so don't really know how much, but had a reef in and probably would have gone just as fast with two.

ardnamurchan point

Er, this was before the previous post, on the way to Loch Aline.

loch aline

After waiting around for replacement parts, clothes etc to arrive in Arisaig (all 'guaranteed 24 h our delivery' claims are,, small-print off all for places like this) finally pushed off southwards. Arisaig Marine provided a very good service and all of the work which they did on the boat was to a high standard and at a fair price.

This was the start of northerly winds which stayed with us for the duration of the cruise. We had some tough times but not nearly so bad as for the poor sods who were trying to go the other way - we always had the wind behind us.

Headed south from Arisaig and anchored for the night in Loch Aline. This is one of those superb natural harbours which are so sheltered that you can get a big surprise when you leave them - it was quite blowy outside.

off rhum

Had a shakedown cruise around the Small Isles, Andrew and Gill came along. We had a mix of weather, this was the best day, Andrew at the helm.

west coast of ireland

Ok, sorry to those who've looked here before for news on this trip and found nothing - had all the best intentions but... the laptop which I bought for the trip didn't last very long - battery life turned out to be less than 2 hours, I took the sleeper up to Fort William from London and left the bag with the charger in the luggage compartment.. . same bag also had all the charts for Ireland and the nautical almanac and a pilot book and all my clothes and my iPod: bag wasn't there when I got to Fort William. And ScotRail couldn't find it.

Which left me in a bit of a dilemma.

After a few days I decided that the bag wasn't coming back, so I bought a minimal set of charts for Ireland (the imray c charts) and got a generic laptop charger.

Out of curiosity I measured the voltage coming off the laptop charger. It was set for 12v but the output fluctuated wildly and I saw more than 60v coming out of it for a short while. So I decided that wasn't such a quality piece of kit as it claimed to be. There was 12.6v in the boat battery so I plugged the laptop in to that. Didn't quite work - it couldn't make its mind up whether or not it was charging so kept on cycling between 'battery' and 'mains' mode, i.e. the screen went bright then dark every second or so. No good trying to work with that.... Found a charger for a portable radio that claimed a 12v output, put the multi meter on that - 16v... So a nominal 12v outputs 16v. Plugged the computer in to that and it was very happy for about two hours before it suddenly rebooted itself and died. As in went completely dead. So that was the end of my good resolutions for doing some work whilst away and blogging progress.

Met Andrew in Portrush and he was using something called usgrib on his laptop - this gets grib charts for just about anywhere, these are apparently the things used by the met office when they put together the weather forecast for a sea area. Sea areas are vast and they have to give a summary of what is happening there in a few lines. The are conservative, so if a gale is happening anywhere in the area it is likely to get a mention in the forecast. However, there may not be a gale coming to the bit of sea which you intend sailing on, which you can see if you check the grib file. Andrew said this had saved him a lot of time on his trip (he was circumnavigating the British Isles, but going clockwise, opposite direction to us) - he had been able to set off when others had been obliged to wait because of a bad forecast.

readier

John Copper phoned to say that the charts have arrived and, after a struggle, I got an asus eee pc, which is being used for this entry. The asus in an expensive toy, the keyboard is v clunky and hard to use, probably not a good sign when the shop offers to bundle a keyboard, but it is a tiny, full featured pc with usb ports and so on for about the same price as a good pda. Might get one of those waterproof keyboards to go with it. I see that the input voltage is 12v, hmmm. Mona has booked a flight to Islay, Andrew and Jo have arranged travel to arisaig, colleagues are starting to realise this is my last week of work, weather has picked up - starting to feel like its actually going to happen.

getting ready to go again

should be back on the boat in a couple of weeks. The yard in Arisaig launched her a few days ago. Planning to go to the west coast of Ireland. Have the charts on order. Going to take a couple of friends for a short trip around the Small Isles as a shakedown. At the moment I'm trying to sort out a computer. I thought I might have a go with a pay-as-you-go wireless modem and an asus EEE pc . The asus looks like it should be boat compatible with no moving parts but I had hoped that they would have improved on the two hour battery life by now. This list is partly to see if my iPod touch works for blogging. Seems ok but photos from the camera gto the blog would not be supported. Having said that, I'll probably be spending most of the trip beyond reach of fast internet via a phone, often don't even get a phone signal, and uploading photos could be expensive. So might see if one of those wireless modems will work with an old wireless router that is lying around here somewhere and maybe use that plugged in to the invertor when I can use the iPod.