The adventure has begun!

After weeks of planning, moving, storing and saying our goodbyes we're finally off on our big adventure. We left Dartmouth at 9.00am and sailed out into Start Bay to be greeted by sunshine and a good Force 4-5 westerly wind (coming from exactly the direction we wanted to go, of course, but hey, ho).

As we headed towards Start Point we had a visitation from our friend Joe who was on a photography job in a helicopter further down the coast. He asked the pilot to do a detour and circled around us a few times from not many feet up. We've yet to see his photos of the boat (and can't wait) but here's the man at work (well, he calls it work!):

We had hoped to be flying the new Yeo Valley spinnaker as he flew over but it was just a tad too breezy for us on day 1. We'd probably have been ok but in sailing we've learned that there's a fine line between looking good and making a proper balls up of it. Incidentally, the daytime international signal on ships for 'I have run aground' is 3 balls, one above the other, hoisted up the mast - could be the origin of the 'balls up' phrase!

Having waved goodbye to Joe we sailed on for our first overnight stop in Plymouth, some 40 miles or so. We were beating to windward the whole way but still had an excellent sail with 'Winnie' (the Windpilot self-steering gear) doing some of the hard work to keep us on course whilst we consumed hot Cornish pasties and admired the view.

We've anchored in the Barn Pool in the entrance to Plymouth, looking across to the Mayflower steps where the Pilgrim Fathers embarked on their great voyage. We're starting as we mean to go on by avoiding costly marinas whenever we can (though we still use their wifi). There are a few other boats here, including a rustic but well-used ferro-cement yacht. Ferro-cement seem an unlikely boat-building material but it was very popular for self-builds since you make a wire frame of the hull, cover it with chicken wire then dollop in layers of cement. The results are often a bit rough and ready looking but the hulls are very strong. Anyway our neighbouring cement boat is called Maid of Portland, which we rather liked.

Tomorrow we'll spend the morning in the continuing quest to find logical and memorable places to stow all our belongings (the aft cabin is a temporary dumping space at the moment) then will head off for Falmouth when the tide turns in our favour around lunchtime.