First weekend away

With east winds most of April and too much work to do we had found the month had just slipped by without much sailing.

I had moved Elektra to her seasonal mooring on the last Sunday of April, now ready to go sailing. The normal thing each season is to have one weekend away to find out what we have forgotten! The weekend 6-8th May was this year’s.

Friday 6th, l had a few chores to clear in the morning, we needed to have left St Anthony beach before the tide went out at 1330hrs. Getting the gear and stores together in one place we could see it was going to be 2 dinghy trips out to Elektra. So we left home at 1230hrs for the 2 mile drive to St Anthony. Wheeling the dinghy down to the shore and loading up for the first trip. The tide was dropping away Vicki  climbed in and l pushed the dinghy out as far as my wellies would let me and climbed in, our only problem was there wasn’t enough depth to put the engine down and no room to row! So it was a bit of pulling on other moored boats and mooring buoys to get to deeper water, where the engine could be lowered. Out at Elektra Vicki climbed aboard and l passed the shores aboard. Vicki was left with stowing the gear while l headed back for another dinghy load. Arriving back at the shore with a light dinghy l could almost get right in with the engine down. I loaded the rest of the gear and this time l was able to row myself into deeper water to lower the engine. Back out at Elektra l passed the rest of the gear aboard and refitted Elektra’s davits before attaching the lifting strops and climbing aboard Elektra. I then lifted the dinghy onto her davits.

In the mean time Vicki had been busy finding homes for all the gear and stores. We were both getting over heavy colds so we’re understandably exhausted after our workout! Stopping to rest and have some lunch before doing anymore.

After lunch l started getting Elektra ready to leave the mooring, it was 1445hrs before  l dropped the mooring and we sailed Elektra out of Gillan under full sail. Slow at first but once out of shelter of the land a little faster in the 12kts of SW wind. Elektra  didn’t really sail well on this wind direction, the mainsail takes the genoa wind. So l pulled the mainsail down and Elektra went 2kts faster. Now just sailing on her genoa making 4-5kts. We were making for our favourite place, heading in past St Mawes up the Precuil River to our favourite anchorage we continued to sail though the moorings and dropped anchor under sail at 1610hrs having logged 7nm.

I had no sooner dropped anchor and hung up the anchor buoy, when l got back to the cockpit Vicki had the cockpit encloser ready to put up. The cockpit cover bars are normally left up only removing the canvas but the bars had been removed over the winter so Vicki helped to reinstall. Enclosure up Vicki put the kettle on and we sat down for hot chocolate and cake. After that I fell asleep for an hour or two. It was getting chilli when we headed into the cabin at 1900hrs to play scrabble, closing up the hatch and starting the Eberspacher, l opened up a bottle of Melbec and we settled down with music for a competitive game. In the end Vicki won.

Saturday we were really lazy, sleeping on passed 0900hrs before l got out and made coffee, then brunch, washing up, where did the day go? I slept quite a bit of it! Caught up with a little reading, still reading March 2021 Yachting Monthly, l cancelled my subscription last summer because l never have time to read. I am getting fed up now with the printers trying to get me back! I think l still have 12 issues to read! After dinner another evening of scrabble wine and music this time it was my turn to win.

Sunday, l got out normal time, the day started sunny and then clouded up and looked almost foggy, with the sun early l started and ran the Eberspacher for a while to warm the cabin. Another brunch and we slowly got Elektra ready to leave, it was then I desided to pull off the split/leaking pipe in the heads and cut it back, seemed like an easy job! All went well until I picked up the sodern kitchen roll sheets from the floor and flushed down the toilet. This blocked the pipework and with no spare time remaining had to be left until another weekend.

The fog had cleared by the time we were ready to leave, I pulled up the anchor at 1345hrs and Vicki motored Elektra back out of the river to St Mawes where I pulled up the main. Then followed a fast sail back to Gillan in an ESE4-5, our problems started when trying to pick up our mooring in Gillan Harbour which is exposed to easterly winds.

There was quite a lumpy swell running into Gillan, we sailed on past our mooring rolled the genoa, started the engine and turned into wind, I lowered the main before picking up the mooring, just an 1.25hrs and 6.5nm after leaving. Lowering the dinghy was another problem with the swell, if that wasn’t bad enough lifting and lowering the engine to the dinghy was another problem. I think we were both glad to escape Elektra and head into St Anthony and home.