Kiel to Falmouth
Chill Out
Geoff Evans
Thu 23 Oct 2008 10:56
Apologies for the delay in updating the blog, but
its been quite hectic!
We left Kiel pretty much as planned at
06:00 with a good passage through the canal, its a pretty busy channel used
by all size's of ships so its important to be in the right part of the
canal!
After a days motoring (no sailing allowed in the
canal) we emerged into the North sea, at last we're on the right side! Next stop
UK!
The trip across the north sea went well, with some
good sailing, (a new record of 11.4kn) ziggzagging between oil tankers, oil
wells (easy to see at night!) and being harrassed by the fishing
trawlers.
It was a fantastic sight seeing the white cliffs of
Dover appear, Erik raised the flag while I had a cup of tea and sang, There'll
be "blue birds over"!
As we were low on fuel, we headed into Brighton on
a falling tide to tank up, here we also had a mechanic onboard to check a
propeller axel gasket, which was ok.
As we were leaving the weather turned really nasty,
and as it was already 18:00 we decided to stay the night and go to the
pub!
The next morning the weather had gotten worse with
high winds and waves, and after a few problems getting away from the jetty (we
had the wind pushing us on) and thanks to Mats skills honed from working on the
Waxholms boats we were on our way!
Once clear of the harbour we had the wind dead
against us for our course to Falmouth so decided to head across to the Solent to
Portsmouth, this took us approximatly 50 miles closer to our destination and
took 12 hours!
Upon reaching Portsmouth we tried to call up the
marina both via phone and VHF but could'nt get hold of anyone, so just took the
first best place, which happened to be next to the Clipper round the world
fleet, now thats what you call a sailing boat!
We decided to find the nearest pub, but did'nt have
the access codes to the marina gates, but this posed no problem as we had our
own spiderman in Erik, who was up over the gates in about 10 seconds and opened
up from the outside!
After about a miles walk, we cam e upon a dingy but
friendly pub, where we had a few pints and ordered chinese and indian takeaways
for the boat, getting back to the boat was'nt as easy as the main gates(about 30
feet high) were now also locked!, After a detour of about a mile, we found
another entrance and finally made it back, curries then bed!
The next morning we left Portmouth heading for
Falmouth, we had the tide with us had had fantastic sailing both day and night.
I came on watch at 06:00 and had the enjoyment of sailing us into Falmouth, we
had had a bet on our arrival time and Seth (Charlie) had bet on 08:00 we arrived
officially at 08:00:04secs!
Well berthed in Falmouth we made contact with the
Marina, as I had booked a lift for "ChillOut" to have some work done, so it was
off up to the yard to get her lifted, and get the crew booked into
B&B's.
After sorting out somewhere to stay, we then went
out on the town, and it was a good night had by all!
My family had come down from London to
visit, (thanks Karen, Steve, Claire and Ben it was great to see you
all!) and we had a great day out in Newquay and also met up with some
cousins that I had'nt seen for 20 years or more which was really
nice.
The boat is now back in the water and we are
getting ready to leave for the next leg of the journey, across Biscay to Maderia
or Portugal, we're just waiting for a favourable weather
forecast.
Erik and Seth have now left the boat, and I would
like to thank them for being part of the crew, we had a great trip with a lot of
laughs!
The new crew has arrived, welcome to Janne,Lotta
and Johan, Sadly because of the delay in getting the work done, Johan has to
leave before we leave
due to committments in Sweden.
The people in Falmouth have been unbelievably
helpful, and we've had a great time here, but now it's time to head south to the
sun!
I promise to update more
often!
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