The Hamble and the Royal Southern Yacht Club turned out to be an excellent stopover – and Tim (OCC Port Officer) was a tremendous help in securing a berth at a very good rate for us and ensuring we had everything we needed.

We cycled up to the Southampton Boat show and met the OCC crowd (John, Jenny, Rachel and Tony) once again and also visited various vendors – and spent a little too much!

What we really needed was confirmation from Sevenstar Yacht Transport of when Toodle-oo! was to be loaded and was she really going to Newport (as opposed to Baltimore as originally thought). Our answer came on Monday that we’d be loaded on Tuesday morning and would be sailing for Newport! – so we finished preparing her for shipment – removing sails, canvas and generally packing everything away.

On Tuesday morning we motored up to the ship and tied up alongside and watched a big power boat get lifted up. Our turn next – and it went as smooth as clockwork I’m pleased to report. Before saying goodbye to the ship and hello to a rental car, I confirmed with one of the crew that yes indeed the next port of call is Newport, with anticipated 12 day voyage…

 

Now where? We have about 5 days before our flights out of the UK – me to India, Laurie back to the US to receive the boat. Hell, let’s go visit Stonehenge!

 

OK, now where? Oh – let’s go and climb Snowdon – highest mountain in Wales. So we did!

 

After Snowdon, we drove into Llanberis and found ourselves at a large old Hotel and were in the bar preparing for our dinner reservations when I got an email from Sevenstar. The ship is headed for Baltimore instead of Newport! This, 24 hours after she sailed out of Southampton!! Furious does not begin to cover how we feel – but we both know that the contract that we signed was so one sided that in reality they could drop her in Australia and we would have no comeback!

We started emailing around to locate a possible captain to meet Toodle-oo! and bring her to a suitable mooring – all rather difficult at short notice.

We headed north to Steve and Sue’s which we’d use as a base for the last couple of days in the UK – and from where we’d head to Leeds to meet sister Kate for lunch. Husband Dustin was recently diagnosed with Leukemia and has just undergone a massive chemo treatment. It was while waiting for Kate at the designated meeting spot that we got another email… The ship is going to Newport after Baltimore!!! Obviously this is great news – if we can really believe it – but it rather begs the question can Sevenstar plan their way out of a wet paper bag???

We’ve not heard any further information from Sevenstar – so today, our last full day, we’re headed off to see other sister – Ann – again for lunch! Yes, waistbands are once again expanding!!!

An interesting last week methinks!

 

We ended up staying in Yarmouth for over a week – a delightful town where we enjoyed some good entertainment – especially at Salty’s, a tiny little pub restaurant with a resident DJ who had the crowd dancing on the tables!! We cycled to Newport and Cowes and also over to the Needles – where surprisingly there’s an old rocket launching test site!!

Tony and Rachel stopped into Yarmouth on their way out to Southampton for the boat show and then dragged us (very willingly) up the Solent to Newtown River – a bird sanctuary – where unfortunately all the moorings were taken and the anchorage was too tight. I did however try anchoring, but when I realized that at low tide we’d be high and dry, we upped anchor – unfortunately by hand since the bloody windlass gave up the ghost again!

We left Newtown and battled the current up to the Beaulieu river and gained a slip alongside Saltwhistle III for a couple of nights at Butler’s Hard, a few miles downstream from Beaulieu..

Beaulieu is a beautiful little village and we dingied up to tour around Lord Montague’s place – and the National Motor museum. Beaulieu is in the New Forest, where horses and donkeys range freely – buggering up traffic and scaring the visitors (well, Laurie at least!) – all good fun!

 

 

Tomorrow we move to the Hamble River – having secured a berth for the next few nights at teh Royal Southern Yacht Club (don’t you know) courtesy of Tim Harrington, OCC Port Officer for the area – what a service!

In the Hamble, we’ll prepare Toodle-oo! for shipment by Yacht Transporter, back to Newport – where she will likely arrive before I return from a business trip to India.

 

We therefore conclude our cruise shortly – but look out for a list of the greats and not so greats of the cruise coming up!

 

We dropped Steve and Sue off at the dock in Fowey where they had looming a rotten drive back to the Yorkshire Dales. Meanwhile we set plans to take advantage of the mild weather for a trip to Dartmouth – about 7 hours East of Fowey.

We came out of the Fowey harbor – into a grey day but very moderate seas and light winds on the beam. We were able to sail towards our destination – always a good thing! The winds were expected to die off considerably, so we were initially delighted that they stayed fresh for longer than expected. So much so that we arrived at the headland ‘Start Point’ 2 hours before the change in the tide – so we had adverse current against wind and therefore steepening seas, forcing us to go further offshore than planned. Then the winds got fresher – until we were fully reefed down and with reefed jib, in 33knots of wind and 6-8ft seas! It all rather got the better of us and we were forced to gybe in 30knots – a really scary prospect, and the execution was equally daunting, Laurie getting her hand bruised when it got trapped in a line. We finished the trip with just the reefed down main, doing 8.5knots – and arrived in Dartmouth as the evening closed in around us.

Dartmouth was in full swing for the annual regatta – and the harbor was packed. We took up a place on a raft of 5 other boats on the mid-stream buoys, lying alongside a 53ft Jeaneau, and licked our wounds. That had been the worst sail of the entire 2 year cruise!

 

Dartmouth was great! What a pretty town. In the morning we watched a tug of war between two row boats, in the afternoon we attended a really nice luncheon catered by OCC Port Officers Tony and Rachel and later watched some really good aeronautic displays, and then had the cat-bird seats for a fantastic firework display in the evening. The barge setting them off was just a couple of hundred feet from Toodle-oo!

 

After Dartmouth, we headed further east towards the Solent, stopping at Weymouth for a night. Turned out to not be such an interesting town as the pilot led us to believe so in the morning we set off for Poole in Dorset. However, half way to Poole, I realized that by pure luck we had a fair tide that would carry us right into the Solent if we so choose – which indeed we did, passing by the Needles in the early afternoon with a 2 knot favorable current – and came into the delightful harbor of Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight – where we have remained for the last few days! It’s a very nice little harbor and town and we sit in the cockpit watching boats coming and going constantly.

Sorry – it’s been a while… where were we?

Unlike the US, in Europe and the Baltic, the VHF radio is hardly used – so when on passage from Amsterdam I had spotted Bojangles’ AIS signal off our port side, and heading in our general direction, I had hailed them for a chat – to find out where they were going. Unfortunately the response was unintelligible due to interference from the large wind farms we were close to…

We had a memorable evening in Dover when Rob from Bojangles came to visit in the cockpit with his wife Baudine. They had been planning to sail on to the Isle of Wight, but had been turned back by the strong winds. Rob told us that he had thought we must be drug dealers or something and had warned Baudine to keep an eye on us during her watch! Then Coen and Harow came aboard from Wildeman – a boat we had met in Amsterdam while waiting for a lock – they were over ostensibly to talk tactics for heading west towards Falmouth – and the evening turned into a spontaneous drinking event – much fun for all!

The following day, all three boats waited till 6:00pm for a favorable tide to help us en route east. We came out of the harbor and the waves were still pretty steep from the previous day’s storm and we all set off close hauled, into the waves and had quite a time of it. Fortunately, the wind soon veered as forecast and we were able to make good progress east. The currents run pretty fast in the English Channel (2+ knots) and so we were going to enjoy them and hate them… On the morning of the second day, Laurie took her shift – at a time when we had an unfavorable current and the wind was from the west, so we were not able to make any headway towards our destination. I was awoken mid morning with the start of the engine – Laurie had had enough! In the 4+ hours she’d been at the helm she’d only made 9 miles good – so goddamit we were going to use the engine to make some progress!

Thanks to the non arrival of some strong westerlies (and use of aforementioned engine!), we arrived in Falmouth almost a day earlier than expected and after a brief attempt at anchoring in a stupidly constrained anchorage, we took a mooring for the night – alongside Rachel and Tony’s Saltwistle III, whom we’d last seen in the Azores!

We were in Falmouth for several good reasons – it’s the usual jumping off point for boats travelling across the Bay of Biscay – or to the Azores (our planned next passage). It was also where the OCC was having a celebratory dinner – and Steve and Sue were joining us for a week aboard.

Plans change and it was on our second day in Falmouth that I came to my senses and realized that it made much more sense to have Toodle-oo! shipped back to the US rather than take several months to sail her back in stages. She is our home – and having her available to us while we go back to work in the US this winter makes more sense… So we started investigating shipping companies…

 

The OCC event was at the Royal Cornish Yacht Club (don’t you know) – and was all rather laa-di-da – but it was great to catch up with Commodore John and his wife Jenny whom we’d missed in the Baltic.

Steve and Sue arrived with the rain – but it didn’t dampen our ability to enjoy the week and we took a double tandem ride around the coast and also utilized their transportation to visit Port Isaac – location of Port Wenn for any watchers of the British serial ‘Doc Martin.’

We sailed with Steve and Sue to Fowey (pronounced Foy!) in relatively light winds which forced us to motor about half the way but we enjoyed the very pretty little town for the remainder of Steve and Sue’s visit and also took a ride to the Eden Project – some bio-domes with rain forest and Mediterranean environments.

The Cornish towns are very picturesque – tucked along the shoreline with tiny winding streets and odd angled cottages stacked one on top of another – we had great fun exploring each of them.

By the end of the week, we had established a plan to ship Toodle-oo! home – so will now head back east(!) to Southampton when she’ll depart from.