The winter of 2025-26 had been wet wet wet, it had almost rained every day from the beginning of November to the end of February. And l had only been aboard Elektra about 3 times over that period to check on her. So no extra winter jobs were carried out.
When a spell of good weather came along in March, l made good use of it and got on with her recommissioning work. Now fully retired there wasn’t any hurry to get Elektra ready for the new season and it wasn’t until the 3rd week of April that l moved her from her winter berth down river to reload her cruising gear. The next day l took her out for a day sail myself. We had decided we would go cruising this season and so hadn’t arranged a swing mooring for Elektra who was just anchored in Carne Creek above the narrows. Then a few days after my day sail, Vicki and l went off for a few days to find out what we had forgotten. We moved on 3 of the 5 days we were aboard and logged 22nm.
The following day after getting home Vicki was rushed to hospital with serve pain in the stomach area. She had a major operation that evening and wasn’t expected to recover. But Vicki was a fighter and 3 days later was moved out of CCU to a general ward. I was visiting her every day. Vicki had been allowed home but was back in hospital with again with complications 3 days later, in the end the doctors weren’t able to save her and she was put with palliative care and came home for her last 12 days. Vicki passed away on the 7th of June.
During Vicki’s illness l had arranged a seasonal swing mooring for Elektra, at the time thinking l would be looking after Vicki for the rest of the summer. The day after Vicki passed l was keeping myself busy running around here and there. The outboard needed the carburetor cleaned, so l went to St Anthony to pick it up, the tide was in, so l thought l should check on Elektra since l was there. Once out aboard Elektra, l got busy checking and bailed some rainwater out. Looking out at Falmouth Bay, l thought l could go for a sail (this hadn’t been my plan). I didnt know if I wanted to continue sailing without Vicki, but l went anyway, it was only then l knew l did want to continue to sail.
I had a couple of long weekends aboard during June before Vicki’s funeral and then 2 days later l went away cruising on my own as far east as the river Exe. I soon discovered cruising alone wasn’t difficult, it was the mooring up on arrival which was the difficult part. For that reason l mainly anchored or picked up a swing mooring through the rest of the summer.
The summer turned into the best summer since 2018, some say since 1976. And l was aboard almost all the time though July, August and September. I continued to sail Elektra east from Gillan and back, but this season l never managed to get out to Scilly because the weather wasn’t right at the time when l could go. But l had revisited the River Avon and explored new places including the Rivers Exe, Tamar and Lynher, l had found and used new to me anchorages along the south coast.
The numbers are, l was aboard 108 days (with Vicki 5) and 88 nights (with Vicki 4) of the nights aboard 70 were at anchor. In 64 days of sailing, I had logged 954nm (Vicki 22). I hadn’t managed to get out to The Isles of Scilly, but still logged almost 150nm more than our last best season, all the sailing had been between Exmouth and Helford River. In the main I had cruised alone all season, it had been a bit of a leaning curve especially mooring up! But I feel I am more confident now for another year, I’m now wondering if I have the confidence to venture away from my local sailing area next season?
