This has
been a slow start to the season, sailing wise, so the Maunie blog has been
rather dormant up until now. However, Graham has been active with publications
of a different and more professional nature, with an article published in
Practical Boat Owner.
Our video of
the 2024 cruise to Guernsey and Brittany also won the ‘osCA’ prize in the
annual Cruising Association log awards, so we attended the awards ceremony in
London and the latest copy of the association’s magazine, Cruising, features
the story of the video.
The early
summer has seen some house-based projects to keep us away from the boat but at
last we’re back on Maunie, though the sailing season began with a much needed
clean of Maunie’s very weedy bottom.
There's a short timelapse of the process here
We finally
headed west from Dartmouth last Friday, first to the River Yealm for a night
where the warning image of heavy rain on the radar turned into an absolute
deluge as we arrived. Enough to confirm that our waterproof sailing jackets,
bought in New Zealand about 12 years ago, aren’t quite as waterproof as we
hoped!
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| Bright yellow echo from the rain squalls |
We then
sailed on to Fowey and enjoyed the sight of the Saturday club racing of local
one-design keelboats called Troys.
The rather
rolly mooring in the lower estuary didn’t promise a good night’s sleep so we
moved upriver to one of three visitor moorings which deliver very different views,
depending on whether you look upstream or downstream.
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| Upstream, all very beautiful.... |
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| Downstream, not so much. The clay loading wharf |
From Fowey
we motorsailed in a slowly dying breeze to an evening anchorage near Cadgwith,
on the SE tip of the Lizard Peninsula to give us a perfect midnight start with
favourable tide for the 6-hour passage to Scilly. Unfortunately, we had to
motor the whole way, but we decided that it’d be worth the effort given a
forecast of settled stunning weather for the week ahead. Anyway, Graham enjoyed
plotting all the ships on the radar during his watch - it’s a busy shipping
area for vessels leaving the English Channel and heading up into the Irish Sea.
Di’s watch saw first light as we approached the islands – always a treat!
Scilly is
just beautiful but previous visits have always involved watching the forecast
as it’s not a comfortable place to be in strong winds. We’re also usually on a
mission to move on to the next location so the islands have always been a one
or two day stop-over; indeed, this time we were planning to sail on to SW
Ireland.
With a few
days of really settled weather ahead (and a not so certain long-term forecast
for next week), we’ve changed our plans and have decided to spend some quality
time here in Scilly. So far, we’re not regretting the decision at all; it’s
just a beautiful place.
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| The view from our Porth Cressa anchorage, St Mary's |
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| The main harbour with the RMS Scillonian (the daily supply ship) on the left |
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| Locals bartering potatoes for fish |
Of course,
it wouldn’t be a Maunie cruise without some boat maintenance in exotic places,
so Graham set about solving a small but niggling water leak that only happened
when the boat was heeled over and punching into big waves. Removing the teak
capping rail (a 2-hour process) revealed a fissure in the filler between the
hull and deck mouldings that would allow water to creep in to the boat.
With
the gaps fully sealed, the teak was replaced onto a bed of butyl sealant, so we
are very hopeful that we’ve fixed the issue. Di, meanwhile, did sterling work
sorting out the slightly chaotic storage of gear below decks. When we were on
the long voyage, we were very strict about everything having its place (we had
to be, otherwise we’d never find things when we needed them) but that
discipline had taken a bit of a slide recently. It feels good to have
everything back in order!
