We finally found some wind today.  OK you can believe that bit.  Rather than sunscreen, kayaking and general tourist behaviour (some great photos to share in a future post) we have been able to worry about sunscreen and living at an angle again.  Pouring milk is a particular problem, and many of you know how we meter the addition of milk to tea very carefully.  Not easy on a moving platform.  On port tack you have to strap yourself to the stove while preparing food and on starboard you can’t wash up because the sink fills with salt water rather than draining the other way.  Whatever you are doing you have to brace yourself against one wall or the other.

But a decent 15-20 knots of wind means we finally made it around the south west tip of Ireland and have started heading north.  After a 4am start, we anchored this afternoon at Wexford Bay, just north of Rosslare.  It’s not the most sheltered of anchorages and not the most crowded (we were the only ones here).  But who should rock up, sometime while we were watching England loose to Belgium and generally feeling a bit ill in all the rolling around, but our round-Britain rower.  We saw Andy on our first evening, moored at the Isle of Sheppey, and here he is again.   What are the odds of that?   And while we have generally been pretty pleased with our progress and minimal consumption of diesel, Andy has rowed the same ground.  Respect!  Please sponsor this guy, he must be amazing.

After all the excitement of getting to Ireland, it has been very quiet by comparison ever since.  We had some time off in Kinsale and in Cork to celebrate Alex’s birthday.  It’s the first time we’ve been to the cinema since a disappointing experience in Bracknell with The Two Towers!  A 5 star verdict on Solo but the overall experience was probably enhanced by there being fewer than 10 other people at an unpopular matinee screening.

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Not sure we made the most of Kinsale as the gourmet capital of Ireland, our experience being limited to take away fish and chips, an outstanding cream tea at Charles fort, a rather poor supermarket pizza and some quite nasty spiced sausage rolls.

The local supermarket chain we have decided is equivalent to Spar shopping at Waitrose prices.  However, a great success so far is meals on the Mr D no-power slow cooker.  It’s not quite no power: you have to fry / mix the ingredients and get everything on a rolling boil before transferring it all to an insulated jacket where it cooks away for the afternoon and emerges delicious.  We had the first half of a herby chicken / bacon / vegetable casserole last night; the other half is in the fridge for tomorrow.  It appeals greatly to Helen as it reduces the amount gas and effort per serving; also the amount of meat per serving as Alex doesn’t seem to mind vegetables / beans going in.  She will claim this is all much more sustainable but it actually just appeals to her inherently stingy nature.

Otherwise, it has been pleasant temperatures and light breezes.  Not much good for sailing, and we haven’t managed to make much progress up the coast.  Some pretty coastline and lovely anchorages though; tonight we are in Ardmore Bay.

A new experience anchoring last night at Youghal: very poor holding.  We have become somewhat nonchalant about anchoring on the east coast mud – you just drop it and it sticks.  At Youghal when we reversed the boat to dig the anchor in, it just towed along the bottom.  Repeat attempts no better.  So we set the anchor alarm and turned in for dinner, knowing there would be no wind to speak of and hoping it was up to the significant current.  We left the torch and all the clothes out, the instrument covers off and the engine battery switched on, all in the expectation of needing to make a quick get-away.  Not conducive for a good night sleep, with the steady rumbling groan of the anchor chain.  However, although woken by the alarm on the change of tide it was clear we were not going anywhere far, so back to sleep.

Not much sign of improving wind conditions so we are going for a strategy of getting up late, leaving after lunch, drifting for a few hours with the tide and putting the anchor down wherever we get to.  This gave us time to watch the Panama game today, and we will explore the craggy cliffs by kayak tomorrow morning.

Having had no wind on the way to the Scillies and a couple of days of calm weather to explore the islands, it was time to plan our departure.  Obviously, this meant the onset of gales.  Figured that heading out into the Irish Sea with high winds and rough seas forecast was likely to be uncomfortable.  Delaying 2 days gave us a chance to do a couple of odd jobs including fixing a couple of minor leaks with the all-purpose fantastic, if fantastically expensive, sealing-gluing-gunk Sikaflex291.

We also remade the splice between the anchor chain and rope.  This followed being woken at 4am by Alex’s anchor-alarm app, notifying us we were no longer quite where we used to be.  Although New Grimsby Sound was sheltered from the seas breaking outside, in the high wind we dragged our anchor into deeper water, a vicious circle because as the water deepened, the inadequate length of chain became progressively more so.  It all traces back to a problem we knew of but had never fixed: the splice that joins chain to warp was too fat to fit easily through the windlass so we have tended to anchor only on our 25m chain.  In the shallow waters of the east coast, we had got way with this for 18 months.

After 3 days of scrutinising multiple weather forecasting services, we decided that the conditions looked manageable for a 48-hour window, plenty to get us to Ireland.  Unusually, the passage plan was very simple: leave mid-morning and head in whichever direction we could make comfortably with the westerly wind.  Whatever our speed, we would arrive somewhere or other in daylight the following day.  Where though?  Baltimore looked right out (too far west), a shame as Helen won’t see the Fastnet Rock.  Kinsale looked promising, Kilmore Quay (east) if need be, various possibilities in between or, if everything went badly wrong, Pembrokeshire!

Everything felt good as we left.  Kinsale looked likely, at a close reach; easier than a direct beat to windward.  As forecast, the wind rose (we took in reef 1) and rose (reef 2).  It got dark.  Not forecast by any weather app we had looked at, the wind continued to rise to a sustained 30 knots, gusting high 30s.  (Force 7 gusting 8).  It became a roller coaster ride.  The boat was supreme, charging through the waves.  We can’t have done too bad a job in setting up that wonderful Petersen rigging after all.

Helming is hard work in these conditions, we did hour long shifts in daylight, 45 minutes in the dark. Ventata’s deep fin keel, that makes her so manoeuvrable, means you tend to get knocked sideways by every wave.  You steer instinctively, trying to react to each wave before it grabs and spins you, keeping the wind just ahead of the beam.  Now and again you get hit on the quarter by one coming from a different direction, sending everything sideways that is not tied down. 

It started to rain.  The wind came round as expected, making us close-hauled against it.  In these conditions Ventata seems to go through the waves rather than over them.  Lots of water comes over the bows; sleeping is a challenge.  The boat is continuously heeled to leeward, so if you lie on the windward seat you roll off.  The leeward seat is not attractive as water landing on it doesn’t drain.  So, when not helming, we each got some sleep curled up on the cockpit floor with a pile of wet ropes – nice!  The helmsman doesn’t get away from it either: any water landing on the windward side deck runs backwards and forwards, collecting until it reaches a groove in front of the rear cockpit locker and then empties periodically into their boots ☹

Finally, after about 140 miles on port tack, we started to get some shelter from the Irish coast and made it into Kinsale about 25 hours after leaving the Scillies. We have also found a new leak into the cabin ☹. However, we had a lot of comments about Ventata on arrival (“a grand offshore yacht”) – clearly a discerning lot, the Irish.

On Sunday we passed the Lizard, expected to be our furthest point south and the first time our position has dipped below 50 degrees N.  Spent a pleasant couple of days previously, wandering around in Falmouth and meeting up with Helen’s parents.  We had coffee at the same café where, 18 months ago after viewing Ventata, we agonised over whether to make an offer.  Mum and Dad seem concerned about our weight as they brought an enormous quantity of food and treated us to a couple of meals out.  We are particularly enjoying the chocolate brioche; not sure it is much good against scurvy but it goes down very well with morning coffee.

Lots of coming and going at the Falmouth Town Quay.  We noted a couple smallish sturdy boats, fitted out for offshore voyaging, which must have been the first arrivals for the Golden Globe Race: leaving from Falmouth this week, it commemorates 50 years since the start of the original non-stop around-the-world race, of which (now Sir) Francis Chichester was the sole finisher 312 days later.  Puts our expedition nicely into perspective!  On our own departure from Falmouth, Helen finally had to admit that the nasty bow thruster has its uses: we were pinned onto the pontoon between two other boats by a decent side wind and it made easy work of a manoeuvre that had a lot of potential for going wrong.

Sadly, that wind didn’t last beyond the Lizard.  We persevered with the spinnaker, then poled-out the jib, then the asymmetric, and back to the spinnaker, but eventually had to resort to motoring.  Very unsatisfactory, particularly with the batteries already charged.  The only saving graces were of drying out the spinnaker (accidentally dropped in the water on its inaugural outing a few days before) and getting us to the Scillies in time for a fine bottle of Betty Stogs Brazen Cornish Bitter (4%) in the cockpit before dinner.

The Scillies are very strange: an isolated cluster of low islands with the surrounding seabed 70m below the water in all directions.  Leaving the English mainland, we were very aware of the open water on all sides.  From our east coast base, even in the North Sea, you are never that far from land but from here you can go approx 150 miles N, 2000 miles W or 600 miles S without land or shelter.  An interesting thought as you step into the kayak to go ashore…

In the last couple of days we have been anchored off Tresco, which is apparently leased from the Duchy of Cornwall, but Prince Charles has not been out to collect anchor fees. It has the great feature of having no cars, and is a very relaxed environment. We have walked around most of Tresco and neighbouring Byher.  The vegetation ranges from familiar low grass, wildflowers and heather eeking out a living on the exposed and rocky west to surprisingly lush tropical vegetation on the east.  Yesterday we shared a fish platter while looking out over white beaches, blue skies, parasols and things-that-look-like-palm-trees.  Hard to believe this is the UK.  Led us to reflect that the temperatures so far have been balmy and, although this leads to frustrating lack of wind, it is much less unpleasant than being wet, salty and cold.  Also, that we’re also not great on fish.

Opps.  In a moment of inattention while Alex was preparing the anchor, Helen drove into a mud bank in the Lynher river (Plymouth).  Full revs astern failed to get us off it.  Fortunately: i) the mud is very soft (we didn’t notice the touch) and ii) it was 30min before low tide and so the water was only going to fall another 0.5m before it started rising again.  While we worried about Ventata falling over and generally scrabbled around in nervous activity, she settled gently into the ooze, remaining perfectly upright.

Kayak inflated in super quick time.  We lowered the heavy main anchor and the 25m of chain into it and splashed our way into deeper water, paying it out as we went and dropping the anchor over as far out as we could.  Kayak failed to capsize although it did wobble a bit.

Came back for the lightweight fortress anchor and repeated the process to anchor the stern.

As all this haste was a bit undignified we nonchalantly washed down the starboard side of the hull with a sponge and a bucket of boat wash to make it look like it was all part of the plan.  Alex had cleaned the port side when we were moored port-side-to in Dartmouth and we did intend doing the other side when we had the kayak out, but it hadn’t really been on the plan for today.

Then hand-washed the clothes (salty-wet and muddy) and assembled chilli con carne in the slow cooker.

After a couple of hours we floated off.  We tensioned both anchor lines to stop us from being blown back into shallow water while we waited for there to be enough space to manoeuvre to a deeper spot.  To make us feel better, while we were setting at our new anchorage, about 150m from where we initially grounded we watched a Southerly yacht come in and do exactly the same thing. Fortunately for them, Southerlies have lifting keels, so after a lot of revving of engines they moved to a safer spot.  

Salcombe was good, by the way, although we were a bit miffed to be charged £12 for anchoring on the first night.  Got away with it on the second, possibly because we spent so long out walking on part of the SW coast path that we missed the harbour master on his rounds.

Finally, about 9 hours out of Poole, the wind picked up and we hoisted the cruising chute.  Normally Ventata is well-balanced on the helm, but it was strange steering her in the dark with no points of reference. If you dropped your concentration she would round up by 30 degrees and speed up to 8 knots, in the wrong direction. Ventata was determined to go to Teignmouth, we wanted to go to Dartmouth. Anyway, steering a slightly wobbly course under sail we paced a yacht motoring in the same direction for 5 hours and both of us made it into Dartmouth at 1 am.  Bizarrely, this was bang on time for our passage plan; the law of averages worked out after all!

A damp and dark entry to Dartmouth.  The cloud had come right down but even so this is a magical town.  It is almost completely hidden from seaward: no lights are visible except the cardinal marks to keep you off the steep cliffs and the sectored light to bring you into the river (flashes white when you’re on the right track or red/green if you’re not).  As you enter, the town opens out with houses lining the banks on both sides.  It’s another port that historically has been well-defended: we have been walking around some of the gun emplacements today and marauding ships would be very vulnerable to cannon fire!

We visited a modest museum to Thomas Newcomen, a Dartmouth citizen of the 1700s who it credits with inventing the first usable steam pumping engine.  Originally intended for the problem of clearing deep mines of water, his rather inefficient design was developed later by Watt and Boulton and formed much of the basis for industrialisation.  It is an atmospheric engine, a term I hadn’t heard of before, and there was a rather good video demonstration of the principle (can’t wait to try this at home):

1.       Heat a quantity water to boiling inside an empty drink can

2.       Wait until the can is full of steam, and most of the air has been driven out

3.       Invert the can and dunk the open end in a bowl of cold water (use tongs and don’t get too close!)

The cold water condenses the steam. As water, it occupies much less space.  The thin-walled container is unable to support the partial vacuum and it is instantly and rather dramatically crushed by atmospheric air pressure.  In Newcomen’s engine, the walls of the container are stronger and the vacuum draws down a piston, operating a beam engine to pump water.  Awesome!

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The countryside around Dartmouth is pretty. The Dart trail follows the steam railway upriver where you can cross by ferry (there are lots of ferries here) and return to town. The forests are green and vibrant, which is a strong contrast to the greys and blues of the sea.

Having stocked up on fuel, power, food, gas and water, we are now moving on west, next stop Salcombe (probably).