Decision time 8am, looking at the weather forecast for the day it showed the wind at a steady F4 from WNW all day. We could be on our way by 9.00 am with a following tide for most of the journey, the downside was the sea state which showed large waves of 2.2 metres. The plus side was that most of this would be swell with only small wind waves. It wouldn’t be nice but it wouldn’t be terrible. Not going could delay us for another 4 to 7 days until another weather window opened.

So we decided to go. The gate on the harbour was late going down so 40 minutes were lost straight away, 3 other boats were preparing to leave, all going different directions, but we stole the march on them all, and were out of the harbour first. A bright sunny morning, it was good to be on our way.

As we made our way down the channel, along comes Andy Barker in his Osprey to say goodbye and wish us well.

And so it began, we got the main sail up and made our way to Trevose Head where we could start heading SW, but as we turned at the head so did the wind. Unbelievable, straight on the nose yet again! We briefly considered turning back but with tide against us we wouldn’t make the harbour and I didn’t fancy sitting at anchor for 6 hours waiting to get back in.

So we settled into our now familiar 1 hour on, 1 hour off routine, all the way to Cape Cornwall where we could finally use the sails. The speed went up giving us a boost towards Longships lighthouse. Rounding longships the wind died and we were back to motoring, the tide bringing us uncomfortably towards the rocks.

We were now heading East and as darkness closed in we could see a performance at the Minack Open air theatre up on the cliffs. Pot bouys, in the darkness now became Pot Luck. It’s a long time since we had night passaged, and it was a challenge remembering the different lights and what they were!

As we approached Newlyn harbour we picked out a number of dolphins around the boat, leaving trails of bioluminescence as they led us to the harbour entrance, and at 10.30 pm we tied up at our berth.

It was a quick supper then bed. Exhausted, but relieved to have arrived safely

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