Fatigue and Lobsters

 As the pod of dolphins move on so did I. My bunk was bliss. In my unconscious state we crossed the separation zone between the Scillies and Lands End. This zone is designed to keep large ships apart and has to be crossed at right angles. After five hours sleep I was hungry again. We had made good progress and we had sight of land. 

It is a surprisingly long way from Lands End to the Lizard and it took us all day. We made it to a mooring on the Helford River in time for dinner. A crispy lobster I’m afraid. A disappointment after the delights of Crosshaven. 

One new thing I learnt was AIS. Fredrick showed us an app on his iPhone which pinned shipping to google maps using the internet. This was new to me and of course became ‘a must have’!

We set sail again very early on yet another beautiful day. We past the Eddystone Lighthouse off Plymouth en route to Dartmouth making good progress all day. Despite the good weather there were very few other sailing boats. 

Dartmouth provided another dinner, an improvement on the dry Lobster of the night before. Local bass in an Italian style, but the wine flowed extremely well fuelling an argument on the state of Dragonfly’s navigation tricolour. Was it working? No. Yes it is! No it isn’t and so on.

The next day came slightly later; but we were off in good time with the tide. Lyme bay I had done before in the dark the previous February, so it was nice to see it in daylight. Err...except that you don’t see much of Lyme Bay and it takes for ever. 12 miles off shore you are in international waters and out of sight of land. Again not much other traffic on another beautiful day with perfect sailing conditions. There are few places these days when one is so far away from other people.

After Ten hours we reached Portland. We out ran one other sailing boat which was quite satisfying. We were making use of the tidal vectors more efficiently. Adrian had decided to do the inside route round Portland Bill. This was a fascinating experience and we were able to view a rare and significant amount of the Portland coastline. To get round it safely the passage takes you very close to the shore. 

It was then plane sailing to Adrian’s berth in Portland marina. 

A brilliant trip. I learnt a hell of a lot. Thank you again Adrian.

Atlantic Rollers

Adrian, a serious professional, had spent a lot of time planning the trip including a meticulous navigation plan on hard copy charts. I was well briefed and shown the basics of the reefing system back to the cockpit which was not familiar to me. Neither was the helm and autopilot which I quickly learnt. Also Adrian taught me how to steer a course by sun and stars! 

The sea state remained fairly calm for much of the morning but it was gradually becoming more interesting as we headed South East on a broad reach. The waves became longer and longer. I was hungry, it was lunch time so I volunteered to make some sandwiches; the others did not seem to show any interest and declined my offer. I thought nothing of it and proceeded to consume a healthy and sizeable lunch followed by coffee and a Mars bar. 

My mother described how much fun she had when young sailing to India free from her mother who’s seasickness would confine her to her cabin for much of the trip. My wife Juliet would feel ill just looking at a cross channel ferry, so I am very aware and sympathetic to those who have this problem. It had not occurred to me that keen sailors might feel this way though. Neither did it escape my notice that when you are feeling seasick someone boasting that they don’t get seasick might be a little bit irritating!

The waves were getting longer and longer and at an angle to the boat that caused her to move unevenly. A corkscrew motion with 200 yards between crests and a drop of 50 feet. Some People pay to go on fairground merry go rounds and with no ill effects but by teatime Fredrick had disappeared below with apologies not to be seen again until seven o’clock the next morning. Adrian and I ploughed on and I gradually became aware that he didn’t really appreciate my prattling on. I was loving every minute on the ocean waves. This was sailing.

The wind continued gently from the South West, occasionally we needed to motor sail to keep up to speed but we were keen to avoid using it. The rollers continued to cause this uneven motion which I found quite exhilarating, coasting down the waves only to mount the next in a gentle tipping until the next one. We were making good time according to Adrian’s plan: so all was well.

Unlike the previous night, dinner was eaten solo and thrown together in very quick time. The bearing I was to continue to follow remained constant and I was relieved when Adrian checked our position on occasions. He remained in the cockpit on hand throughout the night keeping me company but obviously in considerable discomfort when he was awake. The sails looked ghostly yet comforting in the mid summer starlight.

This was the second time I was to sail through the night. Some lights were extremely strange. Fishing boats, ferrys, lonely and rather spooky sights of yachts with tricolour navigation lights at the top of their masts and some others which were completely unidentifiable. The stars, a lack of light pollution and a clear sight of the Milky Way made the experience awe inspiring. I was aware of some very strange sounds wafting around Dragonfly too. 

The rollers had subsided by two in the morning so keeping on course was easier especially with stars to follow. Nevertheless no one is impervious to the dreaded ‘fatigue’ in the early hours. I was very glad when Fredrick and Adrian, like butterflies from their chrysalis, now in high sprits, took over from me at seven. 

I had not been down for more than an hour though when the dreaded 

“Robert, Robert”

came wafting down the companionway.

“Dolphins”

For the next hour and forty minutes I “sang” with the dolphins, hand stretched out to them as they eyed me inches from the bow and riding on our wake. Darting around us and with us, in effortless grace and speed. This was one of life’s magical and rare moments when the recent horrors in my life seem to be doused. It got me wondering about those strange sounds in the night too.

Thank you Adrian for that special moment.

To Ireland for dinner

“Would you crew for me? 

Dragonfly is in Cork and I want to sail her back to Portland”.

Adrian and I were old friends. We had shared two years at a training establishment after school and had kept up over the years as our lives bounced around the world. Adrian came from a horsie family but had opted for sailing and cars instead. We played tennis together, we went to Africa together, we were drenched on the Welsh hills together and sun burnt in the Mediterranean. I even managed to get to his wedding!

Dragonfly was a beautiful boat that he had owned for some years. He sold her to an Irishman but missed her so much that when she came up for sale again he had to buy her back. A very good decision.

The trouble was that Dragonfly was now near Cork in Ireland, in the Owenboy River at Crosshaven a hundred and forty-five nautical miles Northwest of Lands End.

Adrian had invited another friend of his to join us. Fredrick was a newly retired pilot who was now training people to fly helicopters. He too was an experienced and keen yachtsman so I was in safe company. We flew from Gatwick to Cork on a beautiful July day. It was cloudless and the British Isles were laid out before us as we flew across the South of England then on to Wales and the Irish Sea. This was going to be a grand adventure.

We were met at Cork airport by the Irishman who was to drive us headlong at breathtaking speed along the narrow road to where he kept his tender. Being my first visit to Ireland south of the boarder, I had been looking forward to seeing a bit of ‘The Emerald Isle’ but I am a very nervous passenger in cars driven unnecessarily fast, so I only saw a blurr of hedgerows and the odd glimpse of other cars narrowly avoiding us. 

Our Irishman was to take two of us out to Dragonfly on a mooring in a three person dinghy and then return for the third person. After that we would all set off down stream to the Marina in Crosshaven where he would then return upstream with one of us in the dinghy so he could collect his car. There are no prizes dear reader if you were to correctly guess who got the short straw. Actually it was quite fun. I enjoy trips in Inflatable tenders if they are sound and with adequate fuel. 

The inflatable was only three quarters inflated so the trips were doable if it stayed that way. He assured us that there was lots of petrol in the outboard so there would be no trouble completing the distances. 

So there I was, in a small tender, loosing air rapidly with little fuel in a foreign country returning the mile up stream with the Irishman. I started to become nervous again. He had forgotten the oars and I had to get back down to the marina. Soon it would be dark. At least it was down stream! 

Amazingly I navigated back to Dragonfly in a now limp inflatable. To my surprise  the petrol did last the course, though with not much to spare. I was allocated the quarter berth in Dragonfly which although close to the engine was very comfortable with plenty of room for my kit. She was wonderfully appointed and comfortable, I was in for a luxurious trip.

We had arrived; dinner was now the top priority.

Dinner

I had spent the whole of six school holidays in France in the early 1960s where my family lived for two years at a very impressionable age. I had learnt to appreciate food, really appreciate food. Crosshaven has a Victorian pub the only eating establishment as far as we could see. It was very busy that first night and the menu was short but what arrived in front of us was a surprise. The subsequent meals over the next three days in this establishment were quite the best food I had tasted outside home for decades. We had not noticed the sign outside stating that they had won a number of awards in previous years for the best pub food in Ireland.

Before paying the Irishman, Adrian did a meticulous inspection of Dragonfly. Everything was checked including the main engine. This proved to have a problem despite being spotlessly clean and shiny. A hair pin hole in the main casing was sending a minute spray of coolant into the bilges. This was surveyed by a local engineer who pronounced that it was safe to use but needed attention on returning to England.

We stocked up on essential provisions for the trip to Portland and set sail early on the fourth day. The weather was ideal, settled with a gentle SW wind. The sea was almost flat as you can see from the photo below as we gradually lost sight of Ireland.