Sorry I have been so slack with the news!
Its been a rather stressful few weeks. We never thought we were EVER going to get away from the UK. Everything seemed to be transpiring against us. The weather, the paperwork and propellor vibration issues which meant we had to be hauled out of the water again while some work was undertaken. We finally got away from Southampton on about the 2nd August into a howling westerly wind which was going to be on the nose for going west so we spend 4 days in the Solent trying to find sheltered anchorages in 35 to 45 knots of wind. We managed to bend a piece of gear during this time and Steven fell backwards against the cap rail while trying to undo a bent bolt (the spanner slipped off). The result was a broken rib and a useless crew member! Anyway lots of painkillers and a deep desire to leave the UK saw us heading west into the weather. We took about 2 days to get to Dartmouth and into the wonderfully picturesque and sheltered harbour. We stayed put for a few days while Steven mended a little more and on a beautifully sunny Sunday morning last week we sailed out of Dartmouth and headed to Guernsey in the Channel Islands. The day was perfect, perfect wind, sun and blue skies. We set and trimmed all the sails and found that she can sail herself very successfully. In fact she sailed half way across The Channel without either of us having to touch the helm. We arrived into a beautiful bay south of the island and spent the night there before heading to the main town of St. Peter Port and the marina. We had lots of customs, export, registration and insurance paperwork to sort out which went very smoothly. We are now back in Saints Bay and ashore sitting in the little cafe by the beach eating delicious home made lemon cake and drinking tea.
The plan now is to go back into harbour on Friday as the weather is going to be bad for the weekend then on Monday, if the weather stays as forecast, we will sail straight to northern Spain (about 5 days?). Sorry for the long winded BLOG but that brings us up to date now.
