We travelled all over the Isle of Man, taking advantage of
the bad weather and the cheap ‘Go Explore’ travel cards which you can buy for
1,3 or 5 days and travel everywhere for free all over the island. What a
brilliant idea and we saved a fortune. We took the steam train (Mark was so
excited, he bounced from one side of the carriage to the other) from Douglas to
Port Erin, the horse tram along the sea front in Douglas. The electric train
from Douglas to Laxey, to visit the Laxey wheel then took the train up to the
highest point on the island – Snaefell. We caught the electric train from Laxey
to Ramsey to watch Andy Murray win Wimbledon in a pub and then caught the bus
back to Peel.
We met several people on the way, most notably – Clare and
John who had sailed from Milford Haven and were moored in Douglas waiting for a
weather window to get home.
Finally, it was time to leave, but we decided to break the
trip into 2 stages. We (our own self built flotilla comprising of ‘Kiwi’ –
Simon & Janet, ‘Joint Venture’ – Malcolm, Gill and Aida the dog and ‘Ty
Mor’) left the inner harbour at roughly the same time 1730 and headed south.
The aim was to have a leisurely sail down the coast and to pass through Calf
Sound at the south end of the island at 2034 (that’s HW Liverpool +0345). The
sea state was still moderate after all the high winds we had been having but at
least the white water had all disappeared just leaving an uncomfortable swell
and chop in places. There was very little wind so we slowly motor sailed down
to the bottom end of the island. 
Much discussion on board about whether it was still too
early to sail through the relatively small Calf Sound channel as we approached
it 30 minutes too early. The water was still boiling with current and as we got
closer it seemed to look even smaller. You could feel the boat being buffeted
around by the current and with some nasty rocks just under the surface it was
starting to look a little unpleasant. We turned around and thought we’d kill
some time running away from it and re-approach it in say 20 minutes. The boat
behind us was ‘Joint Venture’ and they looked at us questioning our decision to
bale. We watched him as he set his path and run the gauntlet. At times he
seemed to completely disappear in the troughs of the waves but several minutes
later and he was safely through. 
Our turn and with some trepidation we also made it safely
through. At the precise allotted time – Kiwi made it through without issue at
all. We sailed on round to Port St Mary and tried to pick up a visitors mooring
but there were none left. It was a popular destination after all the bad
weather as everyone realised they could make the welsh coast the next day. We
tried anchoring but the ground was not good and the anchor wouldn’t hold. When
it came up it was double in size with the amount of kelp it had ripped out. The next option was to tie up against the wall
but there was little space so we choose a commercial vessel which had a run of
tyres down the outside of it and which would give us ample protection against
his steel hull. We just had to keep half an ear open in case someone turned up
and decided to move the vessel out of the harbour. 
Kiwi and Joint Venture were rafted together in front of us.
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