Gwilym's Adventure Blog

After a relaxing Sat evening on the mooring being treated to some formation flying by the Canada Geese, on Sunday it was off and over to Cawsand for lunch on anchor before trying hard to "goosewing" all the way back to the Mew Stone. Sadly  the light variable winds made this pretty difficult but it was still good fun trying.

 A relaxing 3 day break on The River Yealm with Carol and Ruby (the dog) on Yacht Janira. This was all about no wifi, no laptop and having a beak, Floating about, drinking coffee, dinner at The Ship Inn and general chilling out.

Today I was down in Plymouth helping Carol to get her yacht back on the water. After it was craned in I shot up the mast to put some lazy jacks back up before rigging the foresail.  As the wind was picking up and it was difficult rigging on a pontoon facing across the wind, we then motored round into the shelter of The Yealm before mooring up and rigging the main sail and other lines. The boat is all ready for some sailing action now. Just hope for some nice weather to coincide with some days off.

Today I headed down to The Yealm Estuary with Carol to help her move her yacht round to Plymouth to be lifted out. A great sunny day but with a NE wind meaning it was a motoring job as we were heading into wind for 90% of the time. It was great to be back on a yacht (I do miss mine) and entering Plymouth which was my home port for 3 years.

This week I am on residential with Bridgwater College Outdoor Students at Glan Llyn centre near Bala. After and early start this morning and 6 hours on the road, we arrived for an afternoon of watersports. Whilst the students were out in canoes completing a water based orienteering course, I took the opportunity to have a paddle in a canoe, sail a cat (which I capsized for the first time in a long time) and spun round in the safety boat taking pictures.

Yesterday and today I was helping Carol and Debs with the final part of their yacht move. We took a leisurely 2 days heading west with a great evening meal and night on the pontoon in Salcombe having negotiated the surfers on Salcombe bar and watched the lifeboat go out. A lot of motor sailing required due to the wind but fantastic weather and the boat behaved very well. Sadly I am writing this on my phone on side of M5 waiting for AA due to a suspected coolant leak.

The journey continues....... After a weekend of wild weather where my diving and sailing trips were cancelled, this morning I joined up with Carol to continue moving her yacht round to its new home. We snatched a few hours of reasonable weather setting out from Brixham at 11:30 and motoring round to Dartmouth. As the castle came into sight, so did a massive squall that was brewing on the horizon. We held back to allow the tall ship to exit the harbour entrance and luck was on our side as we managed to get in and moored up before the rain started and we enjoyed lunch inside listening to the rain pounding on the cabin roof. Next instalment next week (fingers crossed)

Today I was back out with Carol and Debs sailing their yacht in the Torbay area. The plan is to get it moved round to Plymouth to the new mooring but a few technical issues and poor weather report for the next few days means is will be resting in Brixham until we get a chance to move it on. We had a mixture of weather today but if we ignore the rainy part just off Teignmouth then it was a pleasant sail and saw us arrive in Brixham Marina around 6:30pm. I felt a small pang of sadness as we passed my old yacht moored up in the harbour where her new owner keeps her but it was good to see her on the water. A great meal in the Breakwater Bistro finished off a nice day

This afternoon I helped a couple friends move their new yacht from Topsham down to Exmouth. It didn't quite go to plan as I had to sort out the engine cooling system on the way down the river that caused it to go dark on us before finding the mooring bouy. Anyway we found a bouy and are spending an unscheduled night on the yacht before trying to get ashore tomorrow morning on the early tide.

After spending 3 days last week sitting through Driver CPC - the most boring and pointless set of days I have ever done in my life (still got 2 more to do) it was great to be able to get out on the yacht today with Deb and Carol. Fantastic weather even if the wind was somewhat light.

Bye Dartmouth Castle  Start Point  The Mew Stone Fort Bovisand, almost home As I was not able to get to Salcombe yesterday I knew I had a long day ahead of me so started at 06:30 to catch the tide around Start Point. This all went very well averaging 6 knts from Dartmouth Castle to clearing Start. After that it was a relentless beat into the wind making about 1 mile in the direction I wanted for every 3 sailed. After a few hours of this I dropped sails and motored into the wind for a few hours on auto helm so I could take a break and have lunch. Then it was back to beating into the wind for the final leg up to the Yealm before I again succumbed and motored in arriving on my buoy at 17:00.  41 nautical miles done today so I am a bit tired. Over the last 14 days I have been living on the boat and managed 9 days sailing in various conditions (some less than comfortable), covered nearly 200 nautical miles, visited some nice harbours and generally...