Dartmouth bound

Simon Tong

Sad to be coming to the end of our summer of sailing, but what a great sail back across the channel! After a relaxing day yesterday with breakfast at Christies and a lovely walk along the coast to Fermain bay for a swim we set off rhis morning in light winds that were forecast to increase as we headed north. To begin with we couldn't quite make our calcukated CTS but as the wind backed and strengthened we were soon making haste to Dartmouth. The TSS was quite busy - with radio calls to captains to make sure they had seen us and were happy for us to proceed ahead of them, but the biggest obstacle was a French trawler, IN the west bound channel going back and forth in front of us as we tried to judge our timing to pass behind a large tanker! Once passed that, the wind continued to build with steady F4 now gusting 5 and even with a reef in the main we were making over 7kts through the water. The dolphins were clearly impressed as they kept coming to play pretty much all the way across. By now the sea was pretty lively too and we decided to hove to for 5 minutes- just so we could use the toilet without being thrown around! As we approached Dartmouth the light was fading, along with the breeze and we shook out the reef for the last hour or so, arriving in Dartmouth at 9. A quiet motor up the river in the dark to pick up.a mooring in tranquil, peaceful Dittisham. Looking forward to a rest tomorrow before heading back to SYC.