After the last time we thought of going out to The Isle of Scilly in May the weather just hadn’t been good enough for long enough! Both Vicki and I love Scilly and are always looking for the weather to allow us to go but we know only too well that Scilly isn’t the place to be in bad weather.
The weather forecast seems to change on a daily basis these days, you can only trust them for one day at a time! Like l said, l had been watching the weather for a window of opportunity to get out to Scilly. For better or worse the forecast seemed to present itself. The weekend was showing strong west winds but Sunday to Tuesday looks possible. At first we were going on Sunday but in the end Monday looks better but we would have to motor all the way! We might have been able to sail on Tuesday but that would be another lost holiday day in Scilly. As it turned out Sunday was miserable drizzle and poor visibility which wouldn’t have been good crossing the shipping lanes. To be honest just getting the stores and ourselves out to Elektra on Sunday afternoon was bad enough 😕. This was followed by a sleepless night and it was as if we hadn’t ever been to Scilly either.
We cast off our mooring at 0830hrs on Monday 24th of June, l had pulled up the main but we expected to motor the whole passage as little or no wind was forecasted. A slight worry was we hadn’t used the engine much since over heating it when we had a coolant pipe burst after the SSOA rally in Fowey at the end of May. Vicki took the helm and motored Elektra east to the Nare Point while l got the tiller pilot out and connected up, once around the Nare, l set the pilot going to Manacle Buoy. Looking around there were quite a few other yachts heading our way at this time.
We used to go with the tide from Manacle Buoy to Wolf Rock but a few years ago l found out having planned to get to the Lizard Point for slack water, the inshore stream around the Lizard starts 1hr earlier, and as such we can get 7hrs of push towards Scilly. And with the advantage of arrival in Scilly around high water. With all these other yachts coming at the same time, many more skippers had also worked this out!
We would be against the tide from the Manacles to Black Head so our speed over ground slowed to 4kts, when we got to Black Head we were a little bit early so the tide didn’t turn until we were nearly to the Lizard Point. But the tide was definitely with us off Lizard Point as we touched 9.8kts SOG. The sea was very confused for the next 5nm but was behind us within a 1/2hr with the speed over ground. Once clear of the Lizard the sea calmed down to a gentle long Atlantic swells, possibly 4-6ft high and 50-60ft long. From there it was pretty boring checking the tiller pilot and hourly entries into the log. The only added interest was the ship which passed though our little gang of yachts on its way between the Lizard Point and the North bound shipping lane off Lands End, very skillfully executed by the captain l thought! I had seen her running slightly behind on a parallel course and had already thought she will want to cross our course somehow 🤔. The captain turned her into a line between Elektra and the 2 yachts about half a mile behind and gently steamed her between us on about a 20 degree angle without effecting our progress. The only other ship a cruiseliner passed across our coarse down the south bound shipping lane while we were still crossing the entrance to the north bound lane, so she didn’t affect us. At 1750hrs we arrived at our way point at the entrance to Crow Sound having logged 55nm, from there it was a slower careful motor north to one of our favourite anchorages south of St Martin’s, we dropped anchor at 1830hrs having logged 58nm. I had checked the engine a few times on passage, thankfully aĺl was good with it, now she has had a good test, l feel l wouldn’t worry about it again.
Love Sailing 