Operation POOTANK (Part 1)

Some people had street parties to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Bank Holiday Weekend... we fitted a holding tank!  With lots of wiggling it fitted into the heads and then into the wet locker behind.  However, weighing in at 17 Kg it was very difficult to move into its final position.  The solution was for Nicky to climb into the machinery space so that we could both lift and rotate the tank.

Once in position we were able to drill the holes for the bolts to secure it.  It was a huge relief to find that the tank fitted perfectly.  All of that careful measuring work and time spent making the mock-up was certainly worth it.

The silver stripe you can see in the photograph on the right is one of two metal strips we stuck onto the outside of the tank.  The contents gauge we have bought will measure the capacitance between these two strips to work out how full the tank is.

Having got the tank into position it was then possible to mark out and drill the holes for the deck pump out fitting.  The deck is made up of 3 layers with the middle being balsa wood.  That makes a light and stiff construction, but any moisture getting into the balsa wood can cause it to rot.  We therefore had to dig out some of the balsa wood and fill the recess with glass fibre.  Once set it was sanded smooth and the shiny new deck fitting was then screwed into position on a bed of sealant.

That finished the fitting of the tank.  The next job was to plumb it in and run the wiring for the contents gauge.

Before we could move onto those jobs though, the rigging needed some attention.  The rigging was still  relatively slack after our aborted attempt to lower the mast last week; not good with some relatively strong winds and rain forecast.  I had also done some thinking about the length of the backstay and wanted to lengthen it slightly. So it was time for Nicky to wind me up to the top of the mast.  Whilst up there, as well as lowering the backstay down so that we could work on it, I also sprayed water repellant into the socket for the anemometer and sealed up the socket with tape so that the contacts are protected.  We'd removed the anemometer to protect it as part of the preparation for lowering the mast.

With the backstay on the ground we were able to undo the Sta-lock fittings at the top and on the upper HF antenna insulator.  We measured and cut a new length of 10mm rigging wire which was 7cm longer than the previous one (4 cm to account for tightening the forestay to get the mast rake correct plus 3 cm extra so that we would be able to easily release the backstay with the backstay adjusted fully unwound).  Then came the 'fun' of trying to remove the old Sta-lock cones.  Whilst the cones themselves are always replaced, they jam solidly into part of the fitting that you want to reuse.  One of the fittings came apart with a hearty thwack with a hammer - satisfying.  The other fitting was far more troublesome and I had to drill out some of the old wire to free it up.

Nicky got another work-out winding me up the mast so that we could re-attach the backstay.  Once in position we set the forestay adjuster to give the correct mast rake (hopefully the last time we need to do that) and were very pleased to find that, with the newly added length, the backstay could easily be disconnected.  Maybe the delays in getting the mast down are a blessing in disguise as we now have exactly the right length of fore and aft rigging that we need.

The Holding Tank is Ready

In and around all of the delays in getting BV's mast down and lifting her out of the water, it was really good to receive a phone call from Tek-Tanks informing me that the holding tank was complete and ready for collection.   They have done a great job and the tank feels really solidly put together.

It now looks as though this weekend will be spent starting to fit the holding tank rather than working on the mast and polishing the hull as was originally expected.  Not quite the progress we were thinking of but still a step or two in the right direction.

I have also been thinking about the problem we had trying to get the mast down and the current requirement to loosen off the forestay adjuster to get enough slack in the forestay and backstay to release them.  I tightened up the forestay adjuster to fine tune the mast rake but the result is just a little too much tension in the wires when the backstay tensioner is wound fully out.  On the face of it adjusting the forestay should be a one-off adjustment and that is the way I would like it to be.  On some of the smaller travel-hoists we would expect to have to disconnect the backstay prior to being lifted out to avoid it fouling the hoist cross-beam.  When we get lifted out in the future I don't want to have to take apart the Furlex and adjust the forestay length for every lift, especially as we have a backstay tensioner that should make it all very painless.  Therefore, when the mast is down, I have decided to replace the short top section of the backstay above the HF aerial insulator with a new length of wire which is slightly longer.  That will allow the forestay length to be adjusted to give the correct rake and then left.  If I get my measurements correct then, when the backstay tensioner is fully extended, there will be enough slack in the system to disconnect the backstay easily.  I can't add too much length to the backstay though as, when wound in, the backstay tensioner must still be able to set the correct range of backstay tensions for normal use and when beating into wind.  Lengthening the backstay... another job added to the list!

Bad Luck Comes in Threes

Not a disaster but certainly a frustrating series of setbacks.

First the marine engineer I had booked to change the cutlass bearings when we lifted BV out this week called to say that he could no longer do the work for us this week because of some issues at home.  After some rapid calls to several other engineers it was clear that we couldn't get another engineer to do the work at such short notice.  Lifting BV out of the water has therefore had to be delayed a couple of weeks to when both the travel-hoist and the marine engineer are available.  On the plus side it de-conflicts the work on the mast and the hull, both of which involve quite a lot of work.

Secondly, we had some issues when we tried to take down the mast.  Floating below the crane with the mast supported by the crane's sling it was time to slacken off all of the stays.  All went well except for the forestay adjustment screw which was very stiff.  We didn't want to force it but therefore couldn't get all of the tension off the forestay and backstay; there just wasn't enough slack to safely remove the last two pins.  We therefore elected to delay the lift two days to when the crane was next available.  Having got back to our mooring the forestay adjustment screw freed up pretty quickly, however,  by then we had missed our booked window with the crane.  But, all was ready for the mast lift in two days time.

The third setback came the next morning with a phone call to tell us that the crane had a hydraulic leak and was out of action.  Getting the parts to fix it would most likely take longer than normal because of the Bank Holiday Weekend.  Of course the longer it is out of action, the more booked lifting work is backing up.  When the crane is actually fixed we'll get a better idea of  when we will get our mast taken down.  For the time being we are just waiting for a phone call....

Mast Lowering Preparations

The current trend appears to be that my blogs wouldn't be complete without a picture of the latest piece of canvas work. 

So here is one showing last week's piece of the 'transition to beige' "jigsaw puzzle"... a new cover for the wheel.

I've also spent some time working on our boarding steps for the pulpit.  When Mediterranean mooring yachts normally reverse into their moorings with the transom facing the quay.  That means that anyone walking past the yacht can most likely see directly into the saloon, so stern-to mooring doesn't seem to be very private.  Also, BV has a long fin keel and skeg which means that she can be a little awkward to manoeuvre in reverse, especially if there is a strong cross-wind.  Finally, quite a few of the mooring that I have used in Greece and Croatia actually have enough underwater rocks close to the quay to lead one to worry a little about the clearances for the rudder.  A damaged rudder would definitely be an inconvenience!  Add all of those factors together and there is a compelling argument for having the option to moor bows-to the quay, hence we have dug out the pulpit boarding ladder.  The previous owners had the ladder made but we have subsequently fitted a larger anchor and so the ladder no longer fitted properly.  The step in the middle had a support arm on it and that didn't fit past the anchor, nor was it long enough.  A bit of judicious hacksawing, filing and insertion of extension pieces has ended up with a removable and correctly sized support arm.  I now need to drill and rivet the extension into place and fit a lanyard so that it doesn't get lost overboard when fitting the ladder into position.

Buckler's Hard

The weather was glorious over the weekend so we had friends over and pottered about in the Solent.  We spent a very nice evening at Buckler's Hard where many of Lord Nelson's ships were made.  It's a great spot; peaceful, beautiful and with a really nice pub that has great garden for when the sun is shining and a roaring open fire for colder winter evenings.  Sailing to places like this is great!  A nice taster of future travels....

However, after two days of great company, good sailing and cloudless skies, we dropped off our friends, stopped dreaming of our new life, and turned our attention to the hard work of preparing BV for her mast to be lowered.

All of the sails needed to be removed.  Control lines and halyards also had to be pulled back, coiled and secured to the base of the mast.  With the weight off the boom, the rod kicker could be removed followed by the whole boom.  After several hours of work we had most of the upper deck prepared...

... so we turned our attentions to the 'wiring spaghetti' coming out of the base of the mast and through the deck.  Radio aerial coax, TV cables, lighting and radar control cables were all carefully marked up and disconnected.  I also took several close-up photos to try to make putting it all back together as painless as possible.

We've taken sails off, tinkered with wiring, and nearly all of the bits and pieces we took apart and removed several times in the past.  However, taking everything off at once seems a bit drastic.  I guess everyone feels the same the first time they have to get a mast ready to be lowered.

After what seemed an age, we finally were able to settled down in the cockpit for some well deserved glasses of wine.  It was quite strange without the boom in place; much more open.  

So the next phase will be to work with the shore team to crane off the mast so that it can be worked on.

A Little More Progress

Well the sun has been shining a bit between the rain showers and so I have had the pleasure of spending a few days down on BV.  The transition to beige canvas is progressing well.  We await the production of the new spray-hood to get the full effect but various covers have been finished and the attached photos shows the old spray-hood down with the new beige protective cover hiding it and some straps I have made to secure the bowsprit and the jockey pole.

The mast will be coming down in a couple of weeks and one of the planned jobs was to fit the track for the storm trysail.  The lowest section of track needs to be carefully curved around the other fittings on the mast.  The idea is that we will be able to bend on the trysail whilst being on our hands and knees on the deck.  We therefore want the new track to come down as far as possible on the mast so that it will be easy to reach.  It dawned on me that when the mast is down the halyards and other ropes around the base of the mast won't be in position thus making it difficult to accurately work out the route for the trysail track.  So, it was out with the drill and the rivet gun whilst everything was still in position.  After several hrs of very careful measuring and drilling the lower track has now been riveted into position.  We'll fit the remaining lengths of the track when the mast is down.  These sections will run straight so will be easy to fit; just one area where it passes close to the lower spreader bracket where we will need to check the clearances diligently to make sure that there is no possibility of a car snagging.

It was not all outdoor work.  Some varnish work below needed touching up and I had the joy of crawling around in the machinery room fitting a support bracket I had made to ensure a straight run for the holding tank breather pipe which was sagging slightly in the middle.  I have also secured the fuel and water tank breather pipes to the bracket so they are no longer sagging either.

We have found the logbooks on the market don't really record all of the details that we want and their layout tends to waste pages.  Therefore, for several years, we have used a logbook of our own design which we have had produced at a local stationers.  Nothing special, just lots of photocopied pages spiral bound with a cover.  We were on our last logbook and so another task we've completed was updating the templates slightly and then getting some more printed ready for our big adventure.

Little by little we are getting though or task list.  I will, however, be a lot happier in four weeks time when the mast is back up completely re-rigged and the myriad of other jobs we are going to complete when BV is out of the water are all finished.  It will be a busy time but she will be in really good condition for our summer holiday.

May Bank Holiday Weekend

The May Bank Holiday weekend was mostly miserably wet and grey.  A forecast of some fairly strong mid-Channel winds also put us off going over to France.  On its own not too much of a drama but to get across to France and be able to visit shops when they are open we have to leave on the Friday night.  From our perspective a trip to France would not be complete without the chance to indulge in some nice seafood and cheese shopping.  But after a busy week at work the last thing Nicky needed was a weekend of limited sleep and a Friday/Saturday night being thrashed in a mid-Channel gale.  Also I'm far from good in bad weather suffering from seasickness until I have spent a long time onboard and acclimatised.  Therefore the delights of French seafood and cheese were put on hold for the time being and we elected to go for a relatively local sail.  

We got up at 7 am on Saturday to get BV ready and then took the tide west aiming towards Poole.  BV has grown a significant beard on her underside and is definitely not performing at her best under power or sail.  That will all improve when she has been hauled out and cleaned up at the end of this month but for now it's a little frustrating knowing she is at least a knot or two slower than she should be.  It was close to Spring tides and so by getting up promptly we were able to gain an extra few knots of tide heading in right direction to compensate.  The weather forecasts still talked about gales due  imminently in the Wight sea region but we saw none of it.  Having made good progress west, getting into Poole Harbour would have been a slog against a strong outflowing

Chapman's Pool

tide.  With NE winds set to continue there isn't a great sheltered anchorage there we could have got into so we elected to continue on to one of our favourite passage anchorages, Chapman's Pool.  Situated just west of Anvil Point in Dorset, Chapman's Pool is an interesting spot with good protection from northerly winds.  It is a fairly wild spot really only accessible on foot or by boat.  The 400ft high cliffs dominate and in certain light they can glow or conversely look a little dark and sinister.  It's full of character with just a couple of old fishing sheds (one of which used to be a lifeboat station) on the shore and it has a sense of raw nature about it which we like.  A nice spot to watch the sun go down after a pleasant day sailing.  The photo is one I have picked up from the internet; it gives a better feel of the place than my photographic attempts from sea level.

Needles Lighthouse

Sunday morning was an early start again but straight out sailing to use the east going tide.  We were beating into the wind and did not make the tide gate to pass through the Needles Passage back into the Solent.  We therefore tried an anchorage just south of the Needles light house.  We have not anchored in Scrathchell's Bay before but from the chart it looked as though it would give good shelter from the NE.  The anchor bit in very hard bringing us up with a  sharp jolt; clearly our Rocna anchor likes chalk seabeds.  Great holding was a bonus as the NE wind was somehow channeled around to be more southerly in the bay and it was 'a bit rolly'.  The photo on the right (again poached from the internet) shows the view from the top of the cliff.  The anchorage allowed us a few lazy hours for lunch and to wait for the east-going tide to build to get us into the Solent.  A new anchorage for us but we have marked it down as one for settled weather only.

At 5 pm we were on our way again, motoring up the Needles Passage into a 10 knot wind trying to find an east going eddy in the tide on the south side of the passage.  That worked well and, as we were

Moonrise

pushed into the Solent by the building tide, the wind also picked up and even the sun came out.  We had a chilly but very pleasant beat east.

Beaulieu River was our chosen anchorage for the night but the river has a bar at it's entrance.  We arrived half an hour before my tidal calculations concluded that we had the water to get into the river and so, whilst I stowed the mainsail, Nicky motored gingerly along the entrance transit.  We figured that with the seabed being mud we wouldn't do any damage and on a rising tide there wouldn't be too much embarrassment if we touched; it might even have cleaned off the bottom of the keel if we had ploughed a small furrow across the bar!  As it was Nicky found a path with 20cms to spare and so we were able to drop anchor earlier than planned and, over a glass or two of wine, watch the steady progression of yachts progressing up river with the sounds of the Oystercatchers calling out from the bird sanctuary behind us.  After dinner we picked out Venus from a starlit sky and enjoyed a fantastic moonrise.

The tradition of it raining on British Bank Holidays was perpetuated with rain for most of the Monday as we tacked across the Solent back towards Portsmouth.  Even with our 'dirty bottom' we made reasonable progress despite the wind against tide producing a short sea which regularly kept stopping us from getting up to speed.  In comparison with the yachts which had elected to motor into wind, I think we had a much more comfortable passage as they appeared to have a ride more akin to a bucking bronco.

And so back to our mooring.  It was great to get out on the water but having to get back before we had really got anywhere emphasised how exciting it will be when we are free from our current routine of being tied by work commitments.  We are very much looking forward to the day next Spring when we set off knowing that the adventure lies ahead.

Little Steps

HF Radio Locker vent

A few days down on BV this week and I've managed to tick off some of the little jobs on the list.  The vent for the HF radio locker is now in place and looks the part, as shown in the photo in the left.  I have also delivered the mock-up of the holding tank to the manufacturers.  Having talked everything through they will produce a technical drawing and assuming that matches all of the dimensions expected then we can give the green light for the tank to be made.

A very similar job to the HF radio locker vent was moving the bilge pump switch and fitting the electronic gauge for the aft holding tank.  Not very technically difficult but it takes time and you want to make sure that it is all absolutely accurate with the holes in the right place so that it looks smart.

The finished job has all of the panels lined up as I wanted them to be which I was pleased with.  The gauge does not work yet but it is in place ready for wiring in when the the tank is finally fitted.

I also spent quite a bit of time shoe-horning our folding bikes into the locker under our bunk in the forepeak.  Reading about other peoples adventures, most seemed to strongly advocate taking along some folding bikes.  Avoiding the bikes with the really small wheels

seemed sound advice so we went for medium sized wheels and lots of gears to help with any hills we need to cycle up.  However, even folded up the medium sized wheel bikes have proved to be surprisingly large when you get them inside a cabin.  Fitting two into the locker took quite a lot of wiggling.  It was quite a relief to find that our measurements were not far off and the bikes do actually fit.  It doesn't look like it in the photo but there is also enough space for the storm jib to sit on top of the bikes as we had hoped.

The rest of the time was spent starting to clean up clean up BV on deck after the winter.  All of the teak on the toe-rail and in the cockpit was looking dirty but lots of careful cleaning (rubbing across the grain to minimise damage) has made a big difference.  The deck needs a really good clean next.  I still hanker after that gleaming new boat look but that will take many hours of scrubbing, cleaning and polishing.  The end result is a nice idea but for the time being I suspect the other tasks will take precedence.  Maybe a job to be completed on those long passages to far off sunny climes?

Holding Tank Design

We already have a holding tank fitted to the forward heads but with us planning to spend a lot of time in various idyllic anchorages we have decided that we need to fit a holding tank to the aft heads as well.  The photograph to the left is of a mock-up of the tank made from hardboard.  It has been very worthwhile making the mock-up as I have been able to check that it fits through all of the doorways and hatches as it is wiggled into position.  It has taken 3 modifications to get it right so I think the time was well spent

checking and double checking the dimensions.  It has also allowed me to properly visualise the pipe runs.  The sanitation pipes are quite thick with an outside diameter of 45mm so don't bend around corners very well.  Getting the tank made is going to be expensive so hopefully this work will mean that the tank will be constructed exactly right first time with all of the connections in the right place so that the pipes will run neatly.

It's not just the tank that needed careful thought.  The holding tank needs to be able to be pumped out when we are at sea or from a shore

facility, plus it needs to be vented properly and a carbon filter installed to remove any nasty smells.  The photograph on the left shows the carbon filter housing and the new vent pipe running back through the bulkhead.  The run continues aft and the pipe is vented through a fitting on the transom.  The photograph above shows the  new manual pump which will allow us to pump the holding tank out when we are a suitable distance offshore.  With the pump in position I'm making a few modifications to the wooden cover which will hide the pump adding holes for the pipes and the pump handle.  With that complete we will be ready to fit the tank.  The tank will be ordered next week and I'll use the time it takes to be made to 'psych' myself up for pulling apart the old sanitation pipes.  It doesn't matter how much we flush them through, pulling apart and replacing the old 'pooh-pipes' is not going to be a great job!  We've decided to replace all of the pipes that take effluent with high spec butyl rubber and hopefully that will ensure many years of aroma free sailing.

The last job I stared this week was fitting a cooling vent to the enclosed locker that houses the HF radio.  The radio is made up of 3 boxes with just a control facia at the chart table.  That has allowed the main radio box to be tucked away out of sight.  However, the box will get warm in use and the locker needs a vent to allow the hot air out.  The photograph on the right shows how far I have got cutting the hole.  By my next blog entry the job should be done and the wooden vent cover fitted in position.  That will be after a lot of careful trimming to make it a precise fit plus some time spent varnishing the exposed end grain to seal it.

This week I have also managed to book a crane at the end of May to lift BV out onto the hard for a week and to take down the mast.  A marine engineer will change the cutlass bearings for us and we'll change the anode bolts, the anode, polish the prop and touch up the coppercoat antifouling in a couple of places.  The mast will also be taken down so that we can fit the new cap shrouds and intermediates.  That will finish the re-rig as well as  allowing us to more easily let in a sheave for the new storm jib halyard and to attach the track for the storm trysail.  I'm also expecting to spend many frustrating hours replacing the VHF coaxial cables in the mast.  How long that takes will dictate how much time I have left to polish to topsides.

Hopefully in and around all of this industry we'll get the chance to spend a few days sailing as well.

A Long Easter Weekend

Sadly no sailing because Nicky was on call for work and so had to be able to get back quickly.  We were however able to get down to BV and work away at our list of outstanding jobs.  We therefore set about a couple of big tasks that we knew would take several days.  As always, even being pessimistic, everything seemed to take twice as long!

The aspiration was to remove the headlining panels in the saloon and forepeak, prepare the forepeak for a final coat of varnish, add some insulation to the deck-head, fit some fans, and also to lay some coaxial from the chart table to the foot of the mast.

The headlining panels are all held on with velcro and bizarrely we found the best tool to work in and separate the velcro strips was a fish-slice.  I guess that fulfils the adage that everything onboard should have at least two uses!  With the headlining panels down BV started to look a bit of a mess and that only got worse as we started to lay some new cables.  We replaced the coax for the VHF radio between the radio and the foot of the mast.  We will replace the rest of the coax in the mast when we take the mast down later this year.  We also laid a new length of coax which we will use for an AIS transponder aerial also to be fitted to the mast when it is down.  We have discovered that our Icom VHF radio will broadcast fog signals if we fit a loudspeaker.  We therefore ran a cable for that ready for fitting the loudspeaker to the mast below the radome.  To say 'we ran a cable' makes it sound very easy.  In general it was but there was the odd S-bend in the cable runs that left us feeling like experts in keyhole surgery.

With the middle headlining panels down to run the cables we went the whole hog and removed all of them so that we could run the cables and fit some fans.  We fitted one fan in each of the cabins, one by the galley and one over the chart table.  Hopefully these will help with airflow to keep things much more comfortable in hot climates.

The really big job we embarked on, however, was to add in some insulation between the headlining panels and the deck-head.  For this we had found some plastic insulation which looks like thin bubble-wrap with a layer of reflective space-blanket on each side.  It took a day and a half to cut out and fit the insulation in the saloon and at the end of that our arms, necks and backs ached like mad.  I guess it's not often you spend that long with your arms up above your head.  The insulation was thin enough to feed in against the deckhead with all of the cable-runs below but it took a bit of care to mark out and cut holes for all of the wooden pads that are the attachment points for the headlining panels and teak strips.

Now it is all complete the insulation looks very good.  After all of the hard work it almost seems a shame to cover it all up with the headlining.  It was fiddly work but we hope that the insulation will help keep the saloon cool in the summer and warm in the winter.  With everthing down Nicky also managed to touch up the varnish on a couple of the teak roof strips.  A couple more coats on those and hopefully we won't have to remove the headlining panels for quite a while.

All in all a pretty successful long weekend with some more work ticked off the list.  We never managed to prepare the forepeak for its final coat of varnish though.  Probably just as well as it rained and that doesn't create the best atmosphere for varnish to dry.  Maybe a job for next weekend?  Having been impressed with the insulation we have fitted we now intend to fit the same to the deckhead above the aft and forepeak cabins.  So with a few jobs ticked off the list we find that we have now added a couple more.  Notwithstanding that, with some larger task now completed it is starting to feel as though we are making headway in out preparations which is fantastic.

A Practice Cruise!

Nicky had to take some leave before the end of the financial year or lose the days off so we have just come back from 2 weeks sailing down to the South West of England.  A great cruising ground and we were blessed with some unseasonably good weather.

Trimming the Lowers

It was not all sailing though; we started the 2 weeks with some work replacing the lower stays.  Good for ticking off another job but we picked the worst weather of the whole 2 weeks to take down and replace the lowers.  It all worked well though; trimming the length and fitting went without a hitch.  Another session with the Loos Gauge helped set up the tension and we were able to correct a slight imbalance in the intermediate shrouds to straighten a bend that was being induced in the mast.   The shiny new rigging-screws look great but we had to get the stainless steel cleaner out to clean the chain plates, which is fine except that it now makes the stainless steel stanchions look like they need a clean.  Yacht ownership and full time cruising is starting to look like it could be a never ending polishing and cleaning session as we won't have the excuse of work getting in the way of having a gleaming yacht!

Enough of the maintenance - what about the sailing?  We aimed for Falmouth near Lands End and sailed down as fast as we could so that we could enjoy a variation on our usual cruising ground of the Solent.  We'd also arranged to meet up with my son, his girlfriend and my daughter for a few days so we had to make Falmouth as that was the arranged rendezvous.

Polperro mooring

Nicky and I sailed to Yarmouth IOW and then, after the tide had changed to be favourable again, on another 89 miles to Salcombe.  We made good progress and worked the tidal gate past Portland Bill to our advantage.  At the crack of sparrows we slipped and headed for Polperro; a beautiful little Cornish harbour which is normally too busy to fit a yacht of our size during the summer.  We had the mooring to ourselves which was a delight with the settled weather.  The entrance where the mooring buoys are is very narrow so we moored bow and stern to a buoy to avoid blocking the path of the fishing craft.
Inside the harbour is beautiful but it dries at low tide so is not ideal for a yacht with a 2 metre draft.

Polperro Inner Harbour

After enjoying walking around Polperro we sailed on to Mevagissey; a 'huge' passage of 12 miles.  However, the short sail meant we could enjoy a night at another small Cornish harbour full of character.  We  managed to buy a crab from the fish stall on the quay and thoroughly enjoyed pulling that apart for dinner.

Continuing in the theme of small Cornish ports, we anchored for lunch off Polkerris in glorious sunshine.  Just a pub and a restaurant there, so no thriving metropolis but very picturesque non-the-less.  Over a glass of wine at lunch we hatched a plan to head for the Isles of Scilly for a couple of days.  Indeed we did actually head off  after lunch in that direction but by early evening we had heard the updated weather forecast and the weather no longer appeared to be as settled as we would have liked for the Scilly Isles with much stronger winds forecast.  We turned around as dusk fell and headed for St Mawes.  It's always difficult to abort a plan but better to be on the safe side.  We crept into St Mawes well after dark and picked up a mooring buoy with the aid of a large torch and enjoyed a nice meal and some wine onboard before bed.

Polkerris

The 15 kt easterly wind and a relatively smooth sea created great sailing conditions as we tacked east to visit Fowey. We joke that it always rains or it is foggy when we visit Fowey and we were not disappointed this time with some rain en-route and a morning of fog after we had arrived.  However, after a slow start we put on our walking shoes and followed the coastal path around to Polkerris which we had anchored off two days before.  Once the mist had lifted it was stunning weather (picture left) and definitely not what you would expect in March.  After the day's 'route march' we treated ourselves to some fizz at sundowners and dinner ashore at a great restaurant in Fowey called "Sam's".  Much seafood was munched!

Saturday 24 Mar saw us move from Fowey to Falmouth to meet up with the kids and having got them onboard we enjoyed 3 days pottering around Falmouth harbour and across to Helford River.  Then, having said goodbye to the kids, we commenced a long predominantly motoring journey back towards Portsmouth because there was too little wind to sail in the dominate high pressure.  Typically, having got back to the Solent with a day in hand (we always seem to do that with work on Monday!) the gradient filled in and there was wind.  Ho hum.... in a few months we'll be free of the ties of work and can sail when the wind is good: happy thoughts of the sailing adventure ahead.