Sorry for the delay in writing this blog – we have now been back in UK for a week and were still suffering website woes! A little later than promised – the Log in page was temporarily fixed by 3rd May – unfortunately this fix gave a conflict with the blog, which stopped working so I was unable to write. To have the blog working the Log in page stopped working so more fixing needed! As I write this now, a week later it all seems to be working again. Thank you Jim. Please let me know if you continue to have problems so that we can report and deal with them. Thanks.
This year Azores to Plymouth – billed as the toughest trip of the year – was a joy.
1300 miles, 2 tacks, no gybes and just 24 hours of motoring.
A fabulous trip which we completed in record time – 9 days. The prevailing wind from the west or south west never appeared, but instead we did some fast reaching in south easterly winds. Because of these south easterly winds, we mainly followed the Rhumb line between the Azores and UK – going this direction meant that we did not see much traffic until the last 24 hours when the radar screen became full of AIS targets.
Being on watch was a joy. Lots of time was spent pouring over weather charts and working out if and when the wind would shift. The sextant was out and we managed quite a few sights even if we then had to scratch our heads doing the sums. The moon was full and cast a great glow on the sea making it almost like sailing in daylight, we even saw a moonbow.
I tried many times to take photos in moonlight and this is my best effort! This was the first passage we have done in a long time when there were no gales and the wind did not rise above 30 knots. Fingers crossed this continues for our next few passages.
Preparations are well underway now for our 2016 summer in Norway. Only 3 places remain on board between now and October next year. 1 space for a male solo sailor to share a cabin with another male solo sailor on the 11 night Lofoten Holiday 19 – 30th July. 2 spaces in a shared cabin on the same trip. You can book these spaces as a couple or as 2 friends, if a solo sailor books one of the spaces we will find a solo sailor of the same sex to share it with you. Full details here.
If you cannot make this summer, dates are available on our website until May 2017 – Summer 2017 we will be in Norway again, the dates will be published in September.
We hope to see you on board.
Navigation wise getting the tide right around the Mull of Kintyre is hugely important when passage planning. Not so easy when the starting point is Plymouth. Nevertheless, after an overnight stop in Dunloaghaire and some fabulous sailing we arrived at the Mull with a fair tide which carried us all the way north and through the sound of Islay. From there it was a quick sprint north to Oban.
