Monday 15 June 2015

Saturday 13th June 2015

Ok today's the day we finally make Padstow!

We woke early and pulled up the anchor. Its always an omnious sign when the horizon, as near as it was due to the limited visibility, looks lumpy. There was still a lot of swell in the bay and the race around the bottom end of Lundy was giving some pretty impressive breaking waves.

We set a course taking us 2 miles north (unfortunately we were trying to go south) just to avoid the overfalls.

But the swell was rocking us uncomfortably from side to side so we bravely hung a right and headed straight into it. An hour later we were still battling the rough sea and even though we were now well clear of the shallower overfall areas the sea was endless. We slowly realised this could be the conditions all the way to Padstow and that was 40 miles or 7 hours away.

Time to consult the chart plotter! We were doing an average of 3.5 knots and it was going to take us  another 10 hours, meaning we were going to miss the tide gate lock in. Now we had to turn round and head for the only shetter we knew - yep Lundy.

We surfed all the way back to Lundy and moored up in the bay again. We decided to go ashore and stock up on some provisions and only then realised that when we hit the potter in the Milford Haven Pierhead lock we had damaged the outboard motor. So we had to row in.





The clouds had settled on top of the island so the poor day visitor streaming off the Oldenburg were not in for a good day especially the sandal wearing ones.

Another bouncy day in the bay but eventually the sea settled down and we got the promised variable force 3/4's which meant the wind settled down to a gentle breeze.

The evening gave us a fantastic sunset:

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