Easy Rider towards the Western Isles and the Faroes

Bucklers Hard, 20th May 2022

It seems to be an interesting mental phenomenon that preparations to leave, suddenly create more unresolved issues which need attending to before departure .

Easy Rider ready to go

  The decorator refurbished our windows since the beginning of March left the day before yesterday. Our neighbour’s scaffolding to be erected in our garden was supposed to go up before our departure and was delayed because of Covid. We will not be around to see what happens to our tiny garden. The card reader for our bank account hasn’t arrived in the post and now we don’t have access to it until we return. E banking seems to make our lives more and more complicated. At least we have our current account working. What does this have to do with anything? Well, leaving our urban existence felt like walking in treacle. There is a point when you just have to say to yourself that it is time to leave, otherwise you will stay entangled forever.

Ominous looking clouds

This state of affairs is accompanied by an underlying apprehension of going to sea after the pandemic. We have become more isolated, house bound, also more apprehensive. Even before 2020, preceding every sailing trip, you do think about what the journey ahead will have in store for you. Will the weather ‘play game’? Will the engine work? Is the rigging going to be all right? We have checked all this during the winter. As far as we know everything is working well on a boat which is after all 27 years old. 

Last year we left for the West Country and encountered several problems which could not be resolved while underway and Easy Rider had to return to base. 

How will it be this year? It feels that the years are passing ever so fast. 

We are five years older that when we did our last big passage from Falmouth to Sardinia during the summer of 2017. We try to stay fit by doing gymnastics with a great trainer whose name is Marco. We think that we are still fit enough and hope that our balance is still adequate. 

 Now we are on Easy Rider. We have finally left our land base. We returned our hire car, did our last minute shopping. Now the weather forecast is not good. After a spell of easterly winds which would have been perfect to reach the southwestern tip of Cornwall, the air flow has become southwesterly for at least five days (as far as the forecast goes). Easy Rider does not like ‘beating’ into the wind and neither do her crew, so our strategy will have to be to leave when the wind is weak. Tomorrow until Sunday the southwesterly wind will not be more than 14kn with gusts around 17kn during the day and falling to almost nothing during the night, so we will try and get as far as Falmouth. We would have preferred not to be using the engine… but we are aware that we would like to reach Oban by the 7th of June for the RCC Western Isles Meet.

Bucklers Hard