Wednesday.
Lunch time we were joined in Dartmouth by Judy’s sister Tracey her husband, Simon and their two children Maisie and Edward. They had had an awful time camping in North Cornwall near Polzeath because of bad weather “RAIN and more RAIN”. We discussed sailing to either Noss Mayo or Salcombe depending on the forecast.
Thursday.
We decided to just have a local sail on Thursday to see how they got on and then pick up a visitors’ mooring at Dittisham.
Well, at 16:00 after Judy had been to the doctors and Tracey had visited the beautician we were ready to go. We set off and had a great sail and ended up anchoring just down stream from the Anchor Stone, how spooky is that??? Whilst there we had a picnic and Ed and Maisie went to the top of the mast. How very brave of them both?
Friday.
We headed off in good weather to Salcombe with a bit of a head wind so we were having to tack most of the way until we rounded Start Point Edward caught some mackerel and gutted them himself.
On arrival in Salcombe were faced with hundreds of dinghy’s racing towards us. It was the Salcombe Regatta. We picked up a mooring just off the town. The wind was increasing and the weather deteriorating. We launched the tender in torrential rain and headed for the pub.
Saturday.
We all lay in bed until 11:30 listening to the rain. The plan was to leave with a favourable tide at 16:30 which we did. We left Salcombe harbour and encountered large crazy mixed up seas and a strongish wind, force 5-6. We motor sailed through this confusion until we rounded Start Point where we were able to switch the engine off. We had two poorly crew on board being sick and feeding the fish every few minutes. >.
We arrived in Dartmouth after three hours and the heaven opened once more. We decided to moor on the town quay and all headed back to Clarence Hill for a warm bath and then bed.
An interesting weekend was had by all with the normal highs and lows. I hope my crew weren’t put off by the experience!!!
