Dover to Falmouth

Anoora Blog
Nigel and Anne-Marie Biss
Sat 22 Sep 2012 16:34
Set sail for Falmouth at 6:30 on the 21st September. Dan arrived at 2:00 that morning, just so we could catch the tide. Kiera and Nigel filled up with diesel and Raph emerged to take the tiller, or as he says ‘to till us’ out of Dover.

Oh how calm was the sea this time!!! We could actually do things on board other than sail and sleep. Poor old Dan stayed in his cabin the WHOLE voyage. Emerging only to scoff a chocolate chip muffin and visit the bathroom to bring it back up again.

But Kiera and Raph had great fun, listening to Conquest of Paradise by Vangelis as we charged along, cooking, writing, photo taking... We were so happy to realise that these things were actually possible to do without feeling ill all the time.

Watches, even at 3 hours dragged out exceedingly at night. The temperature plummeted and NOTHING stopped the cold seeping through your bones. Raph bravely covered most of Dan’s shifts too, and Kiera helped out when she could prise the tiller from his 5 hour frozen fingers.

Kiera even tried having a shower that night. Haha, was an experience. Nigel was zooming along at a gleeful 12 knots past the Isle of Wight and the boat bounced happily over the waves, rattling everyone and everything inside.

The next day was a bit more sober. Everyone was tired and just did what they had to do. The waves had changed overnight from short and steep to awesome longer and rolling ones. Being on watch were the highlights of the day, plugged in to your Mp3, perched overlooking the ocean around you with some epic soundtracks and riding the waves as if on horseback. Fantastic fun. It got a bit hairy towards the end. The wind was nearly directly behind us, making sailing (which we were with the main sail at this point) very difficult. If we were to veer a few degrees of the compass too far to the north we would jibe (an uncontrolled flip of the sail, which can be pretty dangerous). So music stopped at that point. We took the sail in for the last hour as well, and just motored, Raph reaching the voyage record of 18.0 knots surfing down a wave and submerging the bow of the boat up to its navigation lights.

 

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