Lauren here.

We arrived in Falmouth through thick fog and discovered a busy weekend and a sea shanty festival on the other side. Groups of enthusiastic men and woman- carrying glasses of beer- walked around Falmouth town centre and sang about drunken sailors and hoisting the main sail. The town was buzzing and it turned out to be a great welcome.

After the days in town, there was still work to do on the boat to prepare any last niggles before crossing Biscay. Nathan has spent much of his time this week making a spray hood and sun shade for the back deck. It requires a lot of stitching and patience. It's looking good and will help keep us warm in the wind and cool in the sun.

 

We also got a new line for the Aries self steering, replaced the anchor light, adjusted the rigging, plumbed up the BBQ (hoping for good weather to use the thing) and invested in extra diesel tanks to keep on deck. Other boats we met heading west have been taking extra diesel for crossing Biscay as the winds have been so light. 

 

 

Oh yes, and we fixed the leak in the ally dinghy so we're now back to using that.

 

It also has been a case of watching our power consumption this week. The solar panels and wind gen haven't been putting in much power lately, and that's been down to countless cloudy and windless days. Only in the evenings have we got a decent bit of sun, but it's at the wrong angle for the solar panel and not long enough to do much good. For a few days phones and laptops have been without battery, which has been somewhat liberating!

I tested out a bread recipe yesterday, it went to plan and will do the job for when we run out of fresh. A video will be coming soon.

We took last weekend off, dingied into shore and walked to Pendennis Castle. The walk gave us lovely views of the harbour and did us good stretching our legs up the hill. Pendennis was quite a small castle compared to others we've seen, but packed full of interesting stuff.

For this week, there are a few more jobs like swapping batteries. But the J-Class boats are in town so that requires a couple of days off.

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It's Lauren again! I've been working on another video about the trip along the South Coast. To say this video was quick and easy to put together would be untrue; but finally, after a run of technical difficulties, here it is:

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So.... what's been happening this past week? Well, after leaving the great folks at Emsworth Yacht Harbour (by far the BEST marina I've ever stayed in - helpful office staff, great facilities, lovely surroundings. There was quite a waiting list last time we checked to keep a boat there full time but if you're in the area, drop Neil a line and he'll do whatever he can to help), we started making our way down the UK south coast.

Our first night was spent at Cowes, before fuelling up and heading west to Lulworth Cove. Lauren's done a video on it (which will get posted soon) but wow, what a bad night. Very rolly anchorage bordering the UK army live fire range meant we had a looooong night.

Anyway, after that debacle we motored across to Portland Hbr which had minimal facilities, but was a HUGE harbour with plenty of depth where we could just anchor up and get settled for a couple of days.

We were due to meet a friend of ours in Brixham, so at 0400 on my birthday, we duly up anchored and motored 53nm (or 10 hours) there. Such a quaint fishing harbour that was lovely when we arrived and went out to explore, but annoyingly turned very rolly when the wind changed direction *just* before we headed to bed, after which ensued much re-anchoring and attempts to get some sleep. I tell you, it really irks me all the harbours on the south coast are either a.) expensive (£52 a night!!) or b.) have so many moorings you can't anchor even if you wanted to.

Anyways, we went for another wander around Brixham this morn then motored 4 hours to Salcombe, where we're now sitting in a perfect river anchorage. Sure, there's no facilities and it's going to cost us £9 to be here for the night, but at least we should be able to finally catch up on that sleep. More photos to follow!

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Well folks, here it is, after almost 5 years - departure day!

Before we get too ahead of ourselves, it's been a busy week.... First up, testing of our newly acquired cruising chute:

And subsequent minor repairs to it:

 

Then there was dinner and drinks with our sailing chums from Irreversible:

 

After that, the port engine needed an injector swapped (apologies about the bag of shoes - they're yet to be stored / ditched) and both engines needed oil changes and final tune ups.

And then we went shopping (#1 of #4).....

The weather has been truly diabolical the last 48 hours, with 40+ kts and plenty of rain, but the sun is now shining which can only be a good thing....

And time for one last sunset shot.

So there you go. On a personal note, it's been one hell of a trip so far. I bought Calypso back in Oct 2010 and having completely rebuilt it, am proud of what it's become. The project has had it's supporters and detractors but at the end of the day, we're both happy with the boat we have to take us to some pretty far flung places, and that's what counts. There's too many thank you's to mention and I'd hate to offend someone by missing them from the list, so to all those who've supported us - thank you.

I don't need to justify why Lauren and I have cashed it all in to head out on this amazing adventure. Time is a precious commodity, and I'm so glad we've both realised this now, rather than once we get past retirement age and are staring down the barrel.

We're both giving up the work attire, the working lunches, freezing early morning commutes and late night meetings. Giving up the expensive flat, sports car and toys that really, neither of us actually need.

We don’t need a lot of the stuff we had. We won’t have the latest smart phones, we’ll barely get a chance to check Facebook and our inboxes will undoubtedly overflow with emails that we’ll read weeks out of date. The world will go by and do you know what? It won’t really matter.

We’ll still be concerned about friends and family, interested in what’s going on in everyone’s lives and feeling guilty for missing birthdays and Christmas. We’ll deal with terribly glitchy Skype connections, snail mail and static-filled phone calls to keep in touch.

We’ll live in a flat that measures 43ft x 12ft. Our tender will be our car. And the kayaks? Well, they’re amazing for getting some quiet time.

What now matters to us is whether we have good weather for our next passage, that our floating house functions as it needs to, and what great country awaits us next.

We’ll update everyone (through this blog) whenever we can, and organise Skype sessions when time and connectivity allows. If you don't hear from us for a bit, send us an email - chances are we've probably got side tracked exploring somewhere or working on another boat project. 

Later folks.

 

 

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