Atlantic crossing from Bermuda 23. continued
Thisbe
Sun 8 Jul 2007 20:30
The first bit of this final one sent
in error so continued here. After spending the night prancing at
anchor we were up early, made our way into St Mary's harbour and
picked up a buoy after a bit of a struggle. Some thinking person has
finally put lanyards on the chain on the buoys. Previously it was almost
impossible to attach from a high bow as the big piece of chain on the
buoy is far too heavy to lift with a boathook. Saturday was spent ashore
having a look around and savouring the life of plenty, felt a bit wobbly though.
The French cheered up after a couple of hours ashore, they were all
for heading back to Falmouth and missing out the Scillies altogether. Too
wet and miserable for people from Provence where the temperature never
drops much below 30 degrees. A pleasant surprise was the arrival of son Alex who
was mad keen to be in on the last part of the trip. He had driven down from
London on Saturday and hopped on the chopper to Scilly.
The forecast for Sunday was gale
eight, dropping to 7. By Saturday evening the prediction was for a
five. It didn't make any difference to us, the southwest
blow was exactly what we were
hoping for. We had already experienced many gales from astern and were leaving
early Sunday morning whatever.
Cleared the harbour by 8am into a
strong south westerly, probably about a seven, and a big sea on the nose as
we made our way around into St Mary's sound. The only worry was weather the
engine would cut out again, we were prepared to hoist the sails if it
so much as coughed. We had changed the fuel filter and drained water from
the sight glass and all seemed to be well. The trip across to the
Lizard was very exciting, surfing down waves at up to10 knots. We had
decided to pass close to the headland and it was quite a sight with massive
waves crashing over the rocks which extend for over half a mile from the
shore.
The final few miles into Falmouth
were enjoyed in flattish sea in the lee of Lizard, and bright sunshine. We were
touched to see family and friends waving to us from Pendennis point as we surged
by with all sail up in about 25 knots of breeze, showing off of course.
Everyone was waiting for us at Port Pendennis and gave us a heart-warming
reception. Doing the Atlantic in both directions has been a great learning
curve after listening to other
people and reading about it for many years.
Its definitely more difficult coming
north, mainly because the trade winds are affected by pressure changes so are
not as reliable. We had a very experienced skipper aboard who had done the trip
many times before and that made all the difference. He was very proactive rather
than reactive so we were prepared for weather changes before they hit us so were
always in control. Obtaining good forecasts was the biggest problem. We
downloaded gribfiles every couple of days which were not very accurate but did
give us the general drift. Tuned into radio forecasts whenever possible,
we also called up any passing ships who were happy to pass on any
information they had. We are fortunate to have good friends
ashore, Paul and Chris, who went out of their way to send us
weather information via email which was invaluable. This is an excellent source
of information if one has the contacts. Any future trips will have to be in June. Boat
preparation would leave nothing to chance. Catering would be thought out very
carefully, good hot food in any weather proved to be vitally important.
Lack of sleep can be cumulative and debilitating so needs to be given a lot of
attention.
A great trip all in all, I wouldn't
have missed it for the world. Thisbe, our Nicholson 32, is still in
St Lucia, the plan is to bring her home next year ?
This is a very condensed
version of events for the sake of brevity, not sure if the detail would make
interesting reading, who knows?
Manny