Falmouth

It's been a hectic few weeks, putting the final parts together for our Arctic adventure.  We left Lymington on the 8th of April after spending a great Easter holiday with family.  Joining us for the sail to Poole was crew Izzy, Josie and Sam Eeles.  We had a great beam reach down to Old Harry and Old Harry's Wife (notable rocks) as the kids swung from the mast in the climbing harness.  The next day was an excursion to Sand Banks beach.  As we drove over in beautiful sun, something didn't quite look right towards the beach.  Sure enough, as we were 100 yards from the beach, the fog came rolling in.  Old timers sitting out said, "It'll burn off in 10 minutes."  Ha as the whole day was spent looking for the sun, the kids hardly noticed as castles leaped toward the sky. Our stop was cut short as we needed to be in Exemouth by the evening of the 10th to pickup our dinghy.  Exemouth is a "tidal" harbour, entrance through the channel is only available near high tides.  I'm glad we did this during the day!  We made our way in and then through a lifting bridge to a very small marina.  We took delivery of the dinghy spent the night and then left at high tide the next day.  We had a crowd of nearly 50 people watching us leave on both sides of the lifting bridge.  As it's a very narrow and tight space, I think most of the onlookers were waiting for the "NASCAR" moment, a spectacular crash.  I tried to put on a good show but managed to get out unscathed.

A quick 20 mile sail to lovely Dartmouth where we spent 2 nights out in the river on the visitors pontoon.  This gave us a chance to try out the dinghy setup, queue the circus music...How hard could it be?  Place outboard on dinghy, hook up propane, (see Lehr outboards), and pull cord.  I declined the starting instruction while picking up the engine as I've been starting them for 40+ years..Turn up the music...Sixty pulls on the starter cord later, the kids now yelling "When are we leaving Daddy?" I decided maybe I should give the instruction manual a once over.  Oh, you have to prime/purge the gas system.  10 pulls later we had ignition Houston.  Now turn up the music to maximum volume, get everyone one in, put the engine in gear and within 10 feet the dinghy plug, which is trailing on a 2ft cord, is thoroughly wrapped tightly around the prop. My first thought is a quick check to make sure nobody has seen this act.  Out comes the knife and we're back in action after a quick unwind.

From Dartmouth we sailed to Falmouth, 36 miles, in a complete flat calm.  The trip was highlighted by the appearance of some giant jellyfish.  These orange/pink barrel jellyfish have taken over the Cornwall coast as this article due to warm weather.  We decided to stay in Mylor, a small yacht harbour just North of Falmouth.  The boatyard here agreed to look at the Webasto heater.  We have a small 12 volt leak on the negative side when we turn on the heating circuit.  We've isolated it to the Webasto unit itself, and unfortunately haven't been able to get any help from Webasto on the issue.  I'm not impressed by the Webasto customer service, phone calls to voicemail unanswered, email unanswered...We did manage to get the engine serviced for it's first 50-100 hour checkup.  This has to be done by "Authorized personnel" to validate the warranty.  Job done.  We had a great meals at both Castaways Wine Bar and the Mylor Cafe.  Excellent food at both places, well recommend if anyone is close.  Tonight we set sail for the Isles of Scilly, 60 miles South then East.

I'm sorry about the lack of pictures here but Windows 7 has done me in.  Somehow I've lost all permissions to my 2nd hard drive.  After hours of searching and trying permission settings etc. I'm going to take a break and see if something hits me.  Nothing so far has worked...Oh ya, Zetty didn't get a chance to proof read this so blame me for grammar, spelling etc..

LJ