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Thursday August 16th - Carrickfergus - Glenarm (24nm)
The forecast was NW 5-6 going W 4-5 - hardly ideal as our course once up the coast as far as Larne would be 330, but it sounded feasible as the wind should have backed Westerly and moderated by the time we left. It hadn't, needless to say.
We left about forty minutes before HW in company with Helga and had a great sail under genoa only as far as Black Head. As our course came up into the wind so the apparent wind increased, with F6 gusts giving us 25 knots over the deck. Both boats raised the mainsail with two reefs and rolled away some genoa before hardening up for a beat up Magee Island. It soon became obvious that there was a lot more N in the wind than we had hoped for. Helga headed seawards . . . Fairwinds fired up the Beta and rolled the genoa away. We altered slightly to let a ferry across outside Larne, going outside of the Hunter bank. This was a bad move, as the wind was now on the nose for Glenarm and gusting up to 30 knots at times, raising a very lumpy sea with wind over tide. It took us less than two hours to get in from here, but it felt like a lot longer and she took more water over the decks than any time except going into Porto Santo last year. Helga arrived an hour later, by which time I had washed all the salt off myself in a hot shower.
We met a couple with two kids on a Corsair 28 trimaran (Blue Chip), and went on board for a (very small) drink after tea, then it was back to Fairwinds for a couple of hours sleep with the alarm set for one to leave for the run up the North Channel an hour or so before high water. The intention is to head non-stop for home, taking a six hour foul tide from Gigha up to Ruadh Sgeir then catching the first three hours of the tide for the final run North across the Dorus Mor, up the Sound of Shuna and home. |
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Helga
Glenarm Marina
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Friday August 17th - Glenarm - Balvicar (83nm)
We left Gelenarm at quarter to two and had a brisk sail Northwards with the wind F5 just forward of the beam. We arrived at the Mull at dawn in a confused sea, dodged a small ship and kept the tide as far as the bottom of Gigha, then jogged along slowly while I caught a couple of hours sleep.
We met Silkie just South of Ruadh Sgeir as the tide turned and had a celebratory gin and tonic. The sun came out and the sea calmed for a couple of hours and we realised that we were coming back to the most beautiful place we had seen anywhere on our travels.
Coming into Balvicar Bay in convoy with Silkie we met Chris and Ruth coming back from a teatime sail in Grace Darling, and we all duly repaired to the T&T where we met Holiday John, Archie, Tom, Satch and others. Tim and Jenny came in for a pint then we went back to theirs for tea with my parents, who are staying with Tim and Jenny for a month or so.
We slept in our own bed. Our house is in perfect condition and our tenants have even left us a bottle of nice wine. Seil is looking pretty even in the rain and it is good to be back . . .
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We meet up with Silkie
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Approaching Balvicar Bay |
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Grace Darling |
Total time away - 1 year 2 weeks 1 day
Distance sailed - 5758nm
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