Waiting to round The Lizard and Lands End

Falmouth 24 May

We arrived in Falmouth after spending 36 hours (160M) underway from the Solent.

It seemed strange to leave Bucklers Hard, to give up our berth and casting off. We have done this before, sailing towards unknown places.

As predicted there was not much wind to start off. The Solent was very calm. However, as soon as we were in the Needles Channel, the wind strengthened by the tidal wind against the fast streaming ebb current it became very choppy around The Bridge. Easy Rider was pitching badly which slowed us down to 2.3 kn. Only our strong engine helped us to get fast out of the channel in the end.

The Bridge, Needles Channel

Fortunately,  after a few hours, as predicted, the wind dropped so that the conditions  became less uncomfortable. We slowly became accustomed to the motion and settled down to our first night at sea.

We regained our routine very easily. Our watches were as we always do: 3 hours on, 3 hours off. The fact that the passage was uneventful helped us get used to life on board again. 

Lyme Bay is always quite a long and boring slog, so having good weather, a starry night, a gorgeous moon rise to the SE just as dawn was breaking in the E and a pod of dolphins around us made the night experience quite delightful. When the moon is about to rise from the horizon, it looks as if something enormous has caught fire. Then slowly the upper limb emerges, sharp and clear.

settling in for the night

During the following day we had plenty of time to watch the clouds. We watched the low approaching from the SW, with a stunning Mackerel sky and Cirrus clouds that look like smudges on a canvas. The sky became greyer and darker as we approached Falmouth. It already smelled and looked like rain.

plenty of time to watch the clouds

We experienced the most stunning sunset just as we arrived at St Anthony Head. It was a wild, ominous, slightly unsettling yet wonderful sight to behold! 

It was past 22:00 by the time we reached our berth at Falmouth Marina. Finding our way through all the small craft moorings at the entrance to the Penryn River almost in the dark was not quite as easy as it looked on the chart. As soon as we discovered the buoyed channel between the boats we relaxed and were looking forward to a little drink after mooring.

the sky on fire

Since British weather is as it is, we are now waiting for a good window to sail directly to Howth north of Dublin (250M). As the wind is going to veer to the NW-N for another week or so, we will just have to put up with it and head into the wind. At least the wind is going to decrease on Thursday.

We have very good friends in Falmouth, so being ‘holed up’ here is not so difficult. We can finally catch up properly and will have dinner with them tonight.