Slow Passage to Belle Isle, but with Dolphins

After our slow passage to Falmouth we had another slow and tedious
passage heading to France as the forecast northerly 3 to 4 manifested
itself as a SW 1, so a 3 day trip turned into 5 days and we were down to
our reserve fuel.
We spent a whole night watching the lights on Ushant before sacrificing
most of our fuel to get south of the Raz de Seine and most of the way to
Point de Penmarc'h. At that point wind started to build and so we
decided to keep going for Belle Isle and eventually were doing 7+ knots
and had a pod of dolphins come and visit, will try and post the video later.
We are now in the very pretty drying harbour of Sauzon in the northern
end of Belle Isle
Our wind vane steering works very well down to about 2 knots at which
point we have to hand steer so getting our electric autopilot working
has become a higher priority.
On Sunday we cycled round the north end of Belle Isle (in to gale force
winds) and got some more petrol from a garage at La Palais. Having
viewed Le Palais we decided that Sauzon is preferable for us as a place
to moor because we can dry out safely.
Since we have been here the winds have been over force 6 for most of the
time and the seas rough. We are hoping it will moderate in the next day
or so to give us an easy passage towards La Rochelle.

Waiting in Belle Isle

We are currently in Belle Isle awaiting a weather window.  The weather this summer seems to be swinging between strong winds and no wind!

Slow passage to Falmouth

Writing this as we slowly meander our way to Falmouth.We had thought of going direct to France but a low and associated strong winds are forecast for Brittany on Tuesday so we decided to delay a day and go to Falmouth after a night in Cawsand.
We had fresh mackerel for lunch, which we caught off Rame head and cooked underway, delicious with lemon and salad.
Got the spinnaker up for the second time this year until the wind headed us. Also saw some Dolphins astern, but they did not come and play, probably because we were not going very fast.
Whilst in Plymouth I managed my first mobius bummel and double braid splices successfully.  I also put a cover on to our dyneema lazy forestay, which was a pig of a job and gave me blisters, and went up the mast to fit it so we are almost ready to fly the storm sail, I just need to put a splice in the bottom of the lazy stay.

In Plymouth Sound

Lovely downwind sail from Salcombe. Hoped to anchor in the Yealm but it was full of boats so we are anchoired behind Cremyll in the entrance to Mill Brook Lake. Had the fishing line out most of the way but did not catch anything this time, we were probably going too fast.
Our thermal cooker has proven a great success for stews, a slow cooker without the need for power.

Visiting Salcombe

We sailed round to Salcombe from Dartmouth yesterday. We should have had an easy sail as the forecast was for NW or W winds.  In the end it turned in to a beat the whole way with winds in the S or SW. However, it was sunny and the boat was going well so we did not mind.
We have to dry out to do some work on the boat so we are hoping to utilise one of the sandy beaches in the south end of the harbour tomorrow.
Salcombe is stunningly pretty, especially on sunny days such as the ones we are having. You can understand why there is so many boats based and visiting here. Last night we were anchored at the entrance to Frogmore Creek which was very quiet until the ICC dinghies appeared this morning taking a lot of young children on an introduction to sailing. There was so little wind and water traffic that I had a trouble free hour or so up the mast sorting out halyard blocks.  Tonight we are anchored nearer the town (as we needed to go ashore this afternoon) which is a lot more busy.

In the West Country

We left Emsworth in fog and went around the South side of the Isle of Wight without seeing it until we were nearly off the Needles. From there we had variable winds take us to Studland Bay during which we caught mackerel (dispatched with our new priest) in time for a delicious fried mackerel and rocket sandwich for lunch.  We reached Studland Bay late evening and a friend canoed out to meet us; we cracked a bottle of champagne to celebrate being off at last.
The following day we did jobs and then moved round to Swanage to meet up with friends for the evening.  We left the following morning on a marginal forecast and had a fast and wet sail to Dartmouth with the wind varying between NW and W with a short choppy sea with the wind vane steering doing most of the work.
The sail yesterday has given the boat a good work out and today we will check her over and do a few jobs, tomorrow we aim to sail round to Salcombe.
Going down the West Country to Falmouth is our shakedown cruise to make sure that all the new systems are working and to get rid of any stretch in the new rigging; it is a full time job keeping up with stuff at the moment!

A weather window

The forecast is for moderate South Easterlies on Sunday and then Northerlies from Tuesday so if it materialises we will finally be off.  First stop will probably be Studland and then on to the West Country.  We will probably go South of the Isle of Wight as it is the round the island race this Saturday so I reckon the Solent might be a tad busy!