sailing around britain

2006-09-10T06:23:00.000-07:00

sailing around britain
we now feel like we are on the homeward stretch. sarah has had a break from the boat to go to a wedding and i have spent the weekend relaxing in padstow, the home of rick stein. the sail over here was a whopper, 180 miles, with just an hour and a half sleep in fishguard to wait for the tide. we had been stuck in holyhead for a few days, and as we had only just been stuck in douglas on the isle of man for nearly a week, we had to push on, hence all the long sails. we will need to do another long stretch unless the wind direction changes, and head for mousehole round lands end.
its seems like we are nearly round, but its actually still a reasonable distance. internet, like everytyhing else in padstow is very expensive, so i'll log off now!

sailing around britain

2006-08-30T03:25:00.000-07:00

A little update is now needed!

We left Tobermory and headed off to Colonsay where we found ourselves a beautiful anchorage with only one other boat. We had a beautiful (if I say so myself) mackerel soup and then bed. It was a long day with an early start planned.

The morning found us a fair wind and we headed towards the little channel between Islay and Jura. We shot throung the channel with the tide in our favour and then spotted a little distillery which seemed to be a good place to stop. Amazingly we just cought a tour and after being shown the whole creating process we felt the need to taste and then purchase large quantaties of the wares!

Sadly the tide had now turned most definately against us and we crawled 2 miles up the coast and then decided to stop again and went for a beautiful walk while awaiting the tide. Aventually we were heading for Port Ellen our last spot on Scotland and about the best curry either of us have ever had!!

It was a short hop to Ireland and 3 days off the boat in a friends house. She wasnt there but just handed us the keys and we got on with it. We "did" northern Ireland at breakneck speed and were eternally greatful for the time ashore.

Our last 2 sails have been something of stunners with strong winds and strong tides whisking us in the right direction. We have now made it to the Isle of Man and after a few days exploration we plan to hit Wales.....

sailing around britain

2006-08-19T04:32:00.000-07:00

sailing around britainSitting out the storm in orkney was not too bad. We went diving every day and drove round the island (they call the big one 'mainland') looking at neolithic stones in the evening, before retiring to the pub to drink ourselves under the table! We couldn't have hoped for a better place to be stuck in. We had to leave at some point, though, and as the storm died down we made plans to leave. I'm not sure i can describe the journey from orkney round to cape wrath here, it makes me feel unwell thinking about it. we were both very sea sick in the big rolling waves, which came as a terrible shock for sarah, who is never sick. We arrived at Kinlochbervie 18 hours later, myself having drunk nothing for the whole 18 hours, and sarah having managed a small cup of tea. Little huffin was soaked through, we were freezing, nauseous, thirsty and shell shocked. We were very glad to have arrived at all as there was such thick fog, and with a broken GPS we didn't know where to turn left.........the next landmark could have been new york!!

Since that terrible, terrible trip, things have got much better. The western Isles are stunningly beautiful and we have pottered our way down from lewis to skye to mull, where I am now. We are in the quite disturbing town of Tobermory, home of 'toddler tourism', and amazingly there are lots of miniture tourists pointing out which coloured house is the sweet shop in that toddler hit 'ballamory'. we will visit a few distilleries here and on jura and islay before popping over to Ireland and carrying on southwards.

sailing around britain

2006-08-15T08:50:00.000-07:00

sailing around britain
we have been busy and out of phone reception for a little while, so for all those really concerned people (i suspect they may just be mike and mary ann!) we are still alive and didn't sink crossing over to orkney. Last week there were gales, and we had been told at every place we stopped just how treacherous the crossing between the top of scotland and orkney is. we had to ask local fishermen, everyone said, to get the best time to cross as the wind often affects the strong tides around there.
we spend a couple of days at wick whilst we waited for favourable wind. and then set off at the correct time, as discussed with the harbourmaster. if there were any fishermen, they had better things to do than hang around helping us!
we got up to the pentland firsth ( the aforementionned dangerous bit) at the right time, and were in full safety mode, clipped on etc etc. nothing happened, it could not have been easier, and as we entered scapa flow we breathed a sigh of releif!!

sailing around britain

2006-08-02T06:45:00.000-07:00

sailing around britain
we are now in the pretty village of stonehaven, about 10 miles south of aberdeen. the weather yesterday was lovely and sunny and started off with good wind in the right direction, we had the spinnaker up and were steaming along until we suddenly came to an abrupt halt. jane had steered expertly over a lobsterpot! it had wedged its line under our rudder and sarah had to get in the water to free us again!! oops. we'll make sure to look properly in the future.
the weather today is absolutely terrible, its cold, force 6-8 wind and relentless rain is making everything soggy and horrible. its no surprise- just what we were expecting in scotland....i just hope it stops!!
Thankyou to everyone who has donated to our 'just giving' website. We are raising money for the RNLI and Help the Hospices and the money raised will be split between the two. Think of us in damp, cold scotland and please dig deep and donate online at www.justgiving.com/huffin. Thankyou!!

sailing around britain

2006-07-26T06:32:00.000-07:00

sailing around britain
now in newcastle, after a fantastic downwind spinnaker run from whitby, which for once the sun was shining, the wind was going our way and everything was great!!
we had a great time in whitby, home of fish and chips. we spent our time lazing around and recharging our batteries before pressing on northwards.
sarah's father has landed us in the specialist tabloid limelight with a mention to GP magazine. this has developed into an article sort of thing, and we just spent the morning with a very nice photographer who took the boat from all angles.
fortunately, as we were preparing to do a few run pasts 'at sea' shots, we realised our outboard was critically ill and needed some help. we now have our work cut out for this afternoon, but at least we didn't find out at sea!!!

2006-07-22T07:16:00.001-07:00

This is a quick note to check its working as the last long message got wiped!!!

2006-07-22T07:16:00.000-07:00

So the trip has now truly started since Jane joined me in Ramsgate on the 15 of July. Dispite us being raring to go, the weather had other plans and, we remained storm bound until the 17th. Kathy our 1st visitor came for a fun night out and after a lot of bottles of wine we headed for our pre Thames Estuary sleep!

We left Ramsgate at 03.30 as Jane had been up for Hours too excited to sleep! The trip accross the estury was fairly unexciting and due to crap wind we motored most of the way to Harwich.

I cant think of much to report about Harwich other than Craines which loomed over us in a slightly over sized Garaffe way.

From There we again motored in no wind to Lowerstoft. The most noitable part of the trip being the time it took us to go past sizewell B with the tide against us, it seemed like it took all day! As we tied up James our 2nd visitor walked along the pontoon. Another alcoholic evening later and we are truly relaxed.

The next day after emptying the boat to dry out everything ( she leaks, a bit) we set off on a beautilful walk through the broads and onto the beach at Southwold. Highly recomended even in the Guardian Great walks Guide!

Our next trip was an over nighter to Grimby. Thankfully we missed the tide into the Humber and had to anchor off til it changed, I awoke to hear splashing noises and looking our was amazed to be confronted with the heads of 20 seals. For 2 hours they played about the boat using the sea anchor as a hat being their favourate game! Definately the high light so far........

The Plan

2006-07-02T15:02:00.000-07:00

This is a blog of my planned summer trip sailing around uk and ireland. I'm taking a break from work for the summer as has a friend of mine from medical school, Sarah.
We estimate that 3 months is long enough to get us round.....but we aren't going to be certain of that until we arrive before my job starts in October!
We are using Sarah's 22ft Hurley, Huffin. It is going to be compact as we've got our dive gear on board too. She has 4 berths, but one is being used for storage so that leaves 3....

Sarah actually left yesterday from Exeter, without me as I have 2 more weeks of work to finish. By that time she should be at Ramsgate, the plan being that both of us will take her (Huffin, like all boats, is a girl) across the Thames Estuary (lots of moving sandbanks and big shipping) before relaxing along the essex, suffolk and norfolk coast.

The aim is to explore the British coast, enjoying the food and meeting as many interesting people as we can. I'm ashamed to admit how little I know of the UK, even though i've studied in 'The North' and 'The South' and been on plenty of holidays and 'city breaks' in Britain, some in some fairly random parts of the uk. I don't feel i've seen enough of Britain, you probably can't see enough of anywhere, but I'd much rather see some more of my own country than see more of someone elses at the moment. So that's the plan.