After the channel crossing, we found that Hopscotch had beaten us to it; there were just down from the pontoon in Guernsey. Their boat was longer and faster than us. We had a rest day, intending, on the following day, to go off for a walk or go up the river, however, the Boss suggested that we listen to the weather forecast during breakfast (10:10 broadcast from Falmouth Coastguard) and discovered that the weather on Monday was forecast to be S force 5 – 6 veering to SW with rain. Not a good idea, Sunday was forecast to be S 3 – 4 and no rain, another quick change of plan saw us getting the boat ready to leave with the tide back to Plymouth. Hopscotch was doing the same!
It was a high spring tide, and very choppy in the entrance to Dartmouth; we’re glad that we put up our mainsail earlier! The wind was force 4 but from the East, with significant swell and chop, so we risked going over the NW end of the Skerries (quite rough for about 20 minutes), continue SSE until we were about 1.5 miles South of Start Point (again, quite rough for a while). Once clear, we goose-winged the main and genoa (on opposite sides of the boat) and motor-sailed for another hour or so until the wind had strengthened enough for us to sail downwind at 5 to 6 knots. Superb!
We continued sailing into Plymouth Sound, across the Bridge at Drakes Island and finally took the sails down and motor on just South of the Cargreen moorings. It was a great end to the sailing trip.
Packing up the boat took some time and it was divided into what we needed at home and what we can collect later. It took 2 journeys to the clubhouse to ferry the “what we need” off the boat. I suspect it will be 3 for the rest later in the week!
Friends from Eilean who were looking after our car came to collect us, however, after 2 months of inactivity the battery was flat and a little Fiat 500 pumped the necessary into a Honda CRV diesel and got it started. D & A, many thanks for the super lunch as well!
The pile of washing was about 400mm high on the landing! We’re home!