One of those days, when photos aren’t thought about!

After a horrible 24hrs anchored in Cawsands, wet, windy and rolly! The electronics company had got hold of me to say Garmin hadn’t posted the units until Friday before the bank holiday weekend and they weren’t expecting them before Thursday. So we said we would carry on east and arrange something on our return west in about a week.

The forecast for Wednesday was westerly force 4 gusting 6. We thought that looked less wind than the last 2 sailing days. The plan was to sail to Salcombe, l thought about 4hrs away. I pulled up the anchor about 0610hrs and Vicki motored Elektra out of Cawsands while l stowed the anchor, cleaned the deck and did the first log entry. There didn’t seem much wind as we headed across Plymouth Sound towards Bolt Head, but only 10mins later l had stopped Elektra’s engine and logging 5kts on just her genoa. Things hotted up by the time we passed the Mew Stone off the  Yealm River, Elektra was logging 5.5-6.5kts SOG, the sea was big and rolling in from the southwest even with the westerly wind.

With in 2hrs of leaving,  l had decided with this southwest swell and Salcombe halfway through the ebb tide, l didn’t fancy going in the entrance, so had decided to carry on to Dartmouth.

We were seeing speeds of as much as 8.5kts at times, the tiller pilot couldn’t cope, so alot of the time l had to helm. Once past Salcombe the swell died away a bit but the wind was still blowing, 26-30kts! I had kept well south of the land from Bolt Tail to Start Point and it looked like l was sailing into the path  of a oncoming ship as we neared Start Point, but with a jibe and some adjustment to the sail, l showed her my intentions to keep clear. I expected Skerries Bank to be breaking white, but the sea had calmed down by then, even if the wind was still blowing!

On along beside the Skerries Bank and even when we turned towards Dartmouth the wind was still good into the Dart entrance. We were there by 1200hrs and started the engine having logged 34nm plus another 2nm to get moored to a pontoon by 1230hrs. I say what a passage, one to go down in my memories as to why we love to sail!