Westward ho!

Our friend, Karen, who has sailed with us before met us in Lymington on Saturday evening to join us during the Summer Bank Holiday long weekend. We set out on Sunday morning, heading through the Needles with the wind, tide and current. The winds were light, the day was warm and sunny, and we had fun playing with the sails, including the Code 0 which is a large, light wind Genoa or headsail. We arrived in Swanage Bay outside of Poole and were lucky to find an empty mooring bouy. We dropped the dingy in the water, inflated the paddle board and headed ashore to hike up to the top of the chaulk cliffs. The white chalk cliffs are known for two formations, one is referred to as Old Harry and the other is referred to Old Harry’s Wife. Old Harry is tall with a flat top and old Harry’s wife is so badly eroded that she’s going to disappear at some point in the future.

The next day, we sailed to Weymouth where we dropped Karen to catch the train back to Portsmouth. Alas, she has not quite joined the ranks of us retired people, but is free in two weeks and may come join us for another weekend sail. Our next stop was Teignmouth where we were going to tie up on the visitor’s pontoon in town, but it was crowded with small power boats and kids swimming so we opted to anchor in Ness Cove for the night. The sea was flat calm, the moon was half full, and we were the only ones there.

Yesterday, we headed for Salcombe and knew that the winds were going to be light and cyclonic, which means that they were going to be coming from all different directions throughout the day. We must have started up the engine four or five different times and had about as many sail changes. Finally at 3:00 p.m. the wind filled in and we actually did some proper sailing.

Salcombe was a picturesque, little port town that loves watersports. The harbor was lined with beaches where people were swimming, paddling, motoring about in dingies, and sailing yawls which are traditional small sailboats with a little sail on the stern. The winds were blowing through the harbor and the yawls were zipping around between the boats on morings. They were fun to watch and we had a front row seat on Flight.

Our solar panel is the black rectangle at the bottom near the start of the video. We have had lovely, sunny weather and the panel has helped keep Flight’s batteries topped up.