The End of the Cruise

 

The final 258nm passage back to Dartmouth was fast and eventful - we completed it in 39 hours. A perfect beam reach across the Irish Sea saw us pass north of the Isles of Scilly at 09.00 on Saturday and we then turned to port, hoisted the Parasailor and had a great day's run east, passing very close to Wolf Rock lighthouse, south of Land's End.

We enjoyed several dolphin convoys and even had a pilot whale pop up alongside us. Di was still pretty exhausted from her Covid but was able to do short watches to allow Graham to get some much-needed sleep but, to be honest, tiredness meant that the skipper's decision-making process wasn't as sharp as it could have been. The sensible thing to do would be to drop the Parasailor before dark and continue under white sails but we were lulled by the moderate breeze and excellent progress into keeping it up. Of course, the wind built substantially more that forecast so we had a very high speed sail in up to 22 knots of wind.

We decided that it would be safest to wait till first light to drop the sail and Constance our amazing autopilot did an excellent job to keep us on course. However,  sailing much faster than planned, we arrived at the tidal gate of Start Point about 2 hours too early and had to fight a 2-3 knot adverse current which also built up the seas. It would have been much more sensible to be under more easily-controlled white sails, with the option to heave-to (effectively parking the boat with the sails opposing each other) to wait for the tide. Ah, well, we never stop learning, and that experience is salted away as reference for future passages!

Anyway, by 07.00 on Sunday we were safely back on our home mooring and retired to our bunks for a few hours. 

On Monday morning Graham, still testing negative but feeling tired with the onset of a head cold, masked up as a precaution, took the train back to Taunton. In a completely full carriage of 92 seats he was the only person wearing a mask which goes a long way to explaining the recent peak of the Ba5 variant; roughly 1 in 17 people in England are currently infected, according to the Zoe Covid Survey, so statistically you'd expect 5 people in that carriage to be positive.  Anyway, a taxi ride completed the journey back to Kilve to collect the car, which started first time (we love that Subaru!). By the time he got back to Dartmouth, though, he was feeling distinctly ropey so took another test.

So, a full 6 days after Di first tested positive he now has Covid and is feeling pretty rough. The timing could have been a lot worse, however - if the symptoms had kicked in on passage we'd have probably had to divert to Scilly or Falmouth to rest at anchor for a few days.

Apart from the Covid ending , it's been an amazing cruise, even if the weather in Scotland and Orkney was distinctly poor. Overall we sailed 1936nm at an average speed of just over 6 knots and, as always, our faith and trust in Maunie was never shaken.

A final note from the First Mate (as is tradition).......the skipper should not beat himself up for the Parasailor decision. To look after a very 'under the weather' crew, sail Maunie, take on extra watches and everything else was pretty incredible. Yes, we'll both learn from the experience but, as ever, Graham's skills as a skipper are unquestionable.