Day Twenty-six : the final leg

Just after midnight, we slip our mooring and depart Dittisham towards the entrance to the River Dart. The storm has blown through although the sea is still choppy. With a decent breeze behind us, we make the tidal gate at Portland Bill and are abeam the Needles by 1400. We're back in the Beaulieu River by 1630 and the sun is shining again. But after 950 miles there's no time to relax as we have to change over from cruising mode to racing mode for the British Classic Yacht Regatta which starts tomorrow.

Once most of the jobs are done, we relax with a well earned G&T in the cockpit and have a simple supper of pasta and tomato sauce.

Day Twenty-four & Twenty-five : still storm-bound

The weather forecast is still grim, so we decide to sit tight in Dittisham. Half the crew head back to London and I check into the Red Lion Inn for the evening. Outside, the clouds race past and the rain starts to lash down. At the Channel lightship, gusts of 52 knots were recorded that night with a wave height of 4.5 metres.

Next day's forecast is for SW veering W 5 to 7 occassionally 8 with sea state being rough and occasionally rough at first. So it looks like we'll be sailing the day after.

Day Twenty-three : storm-bound in Dittisham

We clear off the Town Quay by 0830 (because you have to make way for the ferries which operate during the day) and motor up the River Dart towards Dittisham. Gales are forecast in sea areas Plymouth, Portland and Wight so we're heading in land to avoid the storms over the next couple of days. After finding a mooring, we do some jobs then go ashore for a wander. We discover the Red Lion Inn and stop there for lunch: hake for some, sea bass for others. It's all delicious and very well priced but not the same as catching it ourselves. But we still hadn't caught any sea bass anywhere so paying for it was a justifiable option at this point. Finish with 'thunder and lightening' ice cream which is vanilla ice cream with pieces of honeycomb mixed in.

After a leisurely wander back to the boat, some of the crew still have room for an afternoon tea of scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam. Needless to say that nobody is particularly hungry at supper time, so a light salad with cheese and crackers fits the bill nicely.

The weather is looking truely awful now and we are very glad we are tucked up in Dittisham rather than making an night passage towards Portland.

Day Twenty-two : Falmouth to Dartmouth

After a very quick shop for scones, pork pies and cornish pasties from Rowe's Bakery, we cast off. Starting with one layer of clothing is a little misguided as when we round St. Anthony's Head (see photo opposite), showers mean that the full wet-weather gear is deployed again. We see 3 dolphins south of Dodman Point, after a lunch of warm cornish pasties and baked beans, and pass south of the Eddystone Rock at 1530. The weather is fair at this point but the clouds are building along the fronts behind us.

As we approach the entrance to the river Dart, the weather is fair and some smoked salmon needs using up so we make some canapes to nibble before we change course for Dartmouth.

We tie up at the Town Quay and decide to give the galley a night off. Instead, we eat at Rockfish which was opened this summer by Mitch Tonks just down the quay from his flagship restaurant The Seahorse. Here we feast on local crab salad - absolutely lovely! But the highlight of the evening was meeting Mitch himself and having an in-depth discussion about the mystery 'cod' we caught off Baltimore. Really wish I'd taken a photo of the mystery fish before it was prepared for cooking but that would have meant the rain ceasing. So we have to make do with a verbal description and Mitch comes to the conclusion it could have been a Pollack.

Time for a quick nightcap and the Dartmouth Yacht Club and a check on the weather. More storms forecast, so it' s uncertain if we'll continue eastwards tomorrow.