Monday 14th June

We came back on board on Wednesday 9th June after a few days at home. Our friend Ian very kindly gave us a lift to Teignmouth which we were very grateful for due to all the items we had to take back with us. Because of the scare we had had when sailing to Looe earlier in our cruising we had taken to decision to fit a new chart plotter. Our new one has an AIS input (Automatic Identification System) which shows you boats that have the necessary transponder (compulsory for all vessels over 300 tons) on your plotter and where they are in relation to you. This took me a few days to wire in and get working with all the equipment it is linked to but is now working properly.
We headed to the River Dart with Ian on his own boat (Eonmor V) and spent an enjoyable weekend on a sailing rally with several other boats, enjoying a BBQ on the beach on Saturday in the sunshine at Dittisham followed by a trip taking two of the boats up to the Maltsters Arms at Tuckenhay which is described in the pilot book as ‘ deep as you are likely to get by boat into the depths of rural Devon’. I can understand this as you pass the muddy patches where cattle enter the creek waters to bathe seemingly only feet from your course in the boat.
Sunday saw most boats returning to their home ports and we took the opportunity to go for a sail and check that the new chart plotter picked up commercial ships also. It did and we were rewarded with one of the fastest sails we have had on Half Time seeing 7.7 knots appear on the log, beating our previous best by 0.3 knots.
Monday should have seen us heading across the Channel for St Peter Port on Guernsey but the forecast (once again) said strong winds and with a twelve or fourteen hour crossing we decided that caution was best as we did not want to reach Guernsey feeling shattered when careful navigation was needed We had thought that we would try to make the crossing in marginal conditions but when we woke for a four o clock departure and heard the wind whistling through the rigging and the rain falling on the deck we turned over and went back to sleep, this is supposed to be fun after all. Looking at the weather forecasts now Thursday seems a likely day as long as the weather does not deteriorate by then so hopefully that will be the day we make our next Channel crossing, 70 miles from Dartmouth.