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Arrived… Will add some photos later

In Rothesay tonight, about 11 miles away from arriving. So its over, mainly I’m looking forward to sleeping in a bed tomorrow where its possible to roll over and you don’t waken up stiff down one side. I’m more than happy to have got the boat this far in one piece, in sometimes tricky weather. Getting the train back down south tomorrow, somehow doing the whole trip back down in 4 or 5 hours seems like cheating. Its been a great experience (sometimes good, sometimes bad) but I’m ready for a break from this for a while, before the next sailing adventure. I’ll go through and upload a load of photos from the trip, when I get home.

So, I made it into Troon. The last few days have been busy. I left Ardglass with a “bad feeling” about heading to Portpatrick – when I got the updated weather I found out why – NW force 5-7 coming in the evening. So I diverted to Bangor, and the win4d only really started when I got into Belfast Lough.

At  4am the wind had backed to W, and dropped so I headed out for Troon or Lamlash. By 9am, Ailsa Craig was very clearly in view, and by noon Ailsa Craig was on the beam. I got into Troon around 5:30pm after a lovely sail and the log is now on 689.1nm.

I’m really happy to be here, had breakfast out in the cockpit in the sun this morning (a first for this trip) and already the hardships are fadring in my memory. Today I had a lazy day, and I’ll go to the Kyles of Bute tonight and anchor, then go into Holy Loch marnia tomorrow morning.

Right now I’m just checking out the track on the Google map. Happy enough with it, considering that at the end of the first 2 weeks, I met so many boats that had been stuck in harbours for 2 weeks due to the weather. I must  have done something to really upset the weather gods, after those 2 weeks of strong wind warnings day after day, usually on the nose. But when I got to Arklow, I’d turned a corner, even if thle weather had its dodgy moments after that. The last week has been a pleasant cruise in comparison. And I’m almost there….

Well … in the Firth of Clyde now, with 42 miles between me and the final destination!

Last night the weather was a bit rubbish so instead of going into Portpatrick I made for Bangor. Lovely sail this morning in a Westerly F4-5, dropping a bit now but getting warmer, which is definitely good, the early morning today was cold cold cold.

Plan a stop in Troon tonight.  

Picking up a signal from Northern Ireland now, and back on the internet…

Briefly, did Arklow -> Dun Laohhaire -> Skerries and now today planning to go to Ardglass which is 19 miles away currently. Nice weather, sailed for the last 6 hours or so but now wind has fallen a bit light and the engine is on… it will probably pick up again though. One thing about Ireland is that the weather never stays the same for more than about 5 minutes.

Habendum is in Arklow, Ireland now, left Milford Haven on 16:55 lock last night and tied up in Arklow at around 12pm tolday. Maybe not the world’s fastest crossing, the night sailing was lovely and the conditions quite settled. But I think I made a mistake and closed the coast of Ireland too far South, the wind was on the nose and a very slow final 8 hours or so up this part of the coast, I reckon the wind would have been a lot lighther a bit further out. But anyway, here now, and only 198 miles left to Holy Loch Marina, so definitely in with a chance of being there by next weekend … better still there are SW winds from next Tuesday or so, and nothing like today’s winds before that. So should be able to keep heading up North, and see where I get to, woohoo.

No update yesterday, as I en ded up in Dale, and there was only a very sporadic internet connection. So what happened

- The autopilot wouldn’t work at all on the way from Padstow to Milford. Being on my own, this was a major bummer, I was frazzled after 16h of looking at the compass and steering. New autopilot ordered, and expected to come tomorrow. Hence I’m waiting in Milford on it.

- Lots of dolphins in the Bristol channel, I was surrounded by them, its only a shame I couldn’t enjoy the beam reach and dolphins, in  fact a confession, I was thinking at the time that I wished the dolphins would piss off and harass a different yacht – yep a pity to see that sight, but I still have the nice memories and I didn’t really hate the dolphins – took a very wide track around some fishing boats to keep them away from the nets.

- A very nice night on a free pontoon in Dale where there were some nice people. No chance of that on the South Coast and Milford Haven has been a very pleasant surprise.

- Managed to source a new autopilot (I hope) and moved to Milford Marina to collect it.

- At last the weather forecast is decent for the next few days and I think new autopilot permitting I should at last be able to put down some miles. I have met boats everywhere that have been stuck for the last 2 weeks so its nice to see the sun again, and the (short) sail from Dale to Milford Haven was beautiful … all it needed was some friendly dolphins.

- There was some kind of explosion at one of the oil refineries, a big bank, lots of sierens, black smoke going thousands of feet into the air, but luckily the wind was blowing it away, and they put it out pretty fast.

So an eventful few days for sure!

Came around Lands End today… no big dramas at all. It was quite a nasty drizzly morning and supposed NW wind was more of a northerly, so close hauled most of the day (spot a pattern here?) . Still, managed to make good time and get to padstow at least 1.5 hours before the lock gate closed.

Habendum made it round Lizard Point today, the most southerly point of Britain, so it should be North all the way now… This is now the furthest West that I’ve been in the boat since I bought her, so all new teritory.

Today we sailed from Falmouth to Penzance which was pretty rough and wet, leaving Falmouth around 5am and getting into Penzance around 12:30 (too early to get into the wet dock).

Tonight and tomorrow I will be rafted up in the wet dock, then on Monday the plan is either Padstow, St Ives or Milford Haven. I’m having some difficulties with the planning now, I’m reluctant to go direct to Milford because it will take around 26h from here, on the other hand Padstow looks like it may not be doable given the constraints of getting into the harbour at HW+/-2h and also the constraints for rounding lands end. So that leaves St Ives, I’ll give them a call tomorrow and see if they have a spot for me to dry out against a wall, that would be the simple solution, if its possible, since I can easily make it round to St Ives before the tide gets too low, and then it should be feasible to go from St Ives direct to Milford Haven in a (long) day.

Great sail today, the wind was in the NW, so left Fowey around 8am and the sea was almost flat with about F5-6. I couldn’t resist letting the brakes off and made 21 miles on the log log from Fowey to Falmouth in 3.5 hours – 6 knots exactly, not a bad run   at all.

So after refueling in Falmouth I rafted up, finishing up around 1pm. Afternoon was lovely and sunny, just got on with a few boat repairs, washed my clothes in the laundry and that kind of thing.

Plan to make for Penzance tomorrow.