Sunday may not have been a good day for the Channel Islands but it looked OK for a sail along the coast to Dartmouth, which would be 20 miles closer to Guernsey if we eventually decided to go. Winds were due to be north-westerly, or perhaps cyclonic, and F4-5. At around 8am we headed to Mayflower's fuel berth, only to find the same problem with foaming diesel that we encountered in Dun Laoghaire. It seemed likely that something was clocking the breather pipe. We trickled in 21 litres very slowly, and set off in calm and drizzly conditions. And basically it stayed the same for the whole trip, with headlands emerging from the murk (above, the entrance to Salcombe) and then vanishing again as we passed by. There was really no wind at all, although there was a bit of a swell running.
For a while I was able to join the Skype call for the AGM of my family's trust, but as we approached Salcombe we lost all phone signal so I had to drop out. That also meant I couldn't call the marinas in Dartmouth for a while. Once I did, none of them (there are three, but our original plan was to go to Darthaven) had any space for visitors. I was so spooked by this I phoned Dartmouth Harbour who assured me they had multiple mooring options and plenty of space.
I loved Dartmouth when we were here in 2021 and it didn't disappoint - an easy and spectacular entrance and beautiful river. I headed for the Town Jetty mainly because I knew where it was. We rafted up alongside a boat which turned out to be one that we had already met in Newlyn, that lives on a mooring off Suffolk Yacht Harbour! Even better, a bit later they were heading to the outside of the pontoon, ready for an early departure the next day. So at around 1700 the various boats on the jetty did a little dance and reassembled in a different order. The tide caught our stern and we accidentally did a pirouette, but ended up safely inside the jetty facing out, connected to shorepower and right in the middle of the town activities. It's not cheap here (£40 a night) but we'd be charged £11.50 harbour dues wherever we were in the harbour, on top of the mooring fee. Darthaven would have been an extra £9 or so, for which we would have been in a quieter but less interesting location, with perhaps a shorter walk to facilities. I had forgotten that we can use the yacht club loos and showers here which are fine, although compact. Also the club has very good taste in magazines!
After a run which turned out to be mostly a walk - the hills here are jolly steep - Guy stepped in to fix a couple of the problems on board. The solar panels weren't charging because a fuse had blown, and replacing it fixed the problem. Just as well, as our shore power went off for a few hours. The fuel breather pipe was cut off and blown through - it seemed to be full of a mixture of water and diesel which is now clear. Hopefully that will solve the problem, and Guy found a connector on board to rejoin the two bits of pipe. In the evening we had an interesting meal at the rather attractive Sail Loft - not haute cuisine but I was interested to eat gurnard, having seen boxes of it at Newlyn.
Finally, and painfully, I made a decision on Guernsey: we're not going. The winds next week looked northerly which might mean that we couldn't get away again, and the whole thing was getting too stressful for all of us. It might all have been fine but it might have been a disaster. We will find an alternative way to scatter Sam's ashes. Instead Guy and I will use Friday's lighter winds to head across Lyme Bay to Weymouth or Portland, meet up there with Ben and Anne who are driving down to Cornwall, Guy can get a train home, and then I will meet Lucilla and Mark who hopefully can leave their car there and collect it later!
Distance run: 35 miles
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| Damp visitor en route. Exactly three years ago we met a damp reed warbler in almost the same spot |
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| A photo cannot convey the steepness of this path! |
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| View from the cockpit: Kingswear in sunshine |
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