Home Sweet Home!

Current locations:  Snow Goose – out of the water at Deacons Boatyard on the River Hamble.  Crew – home / work / nursery in Winchester.

Places visited between Padstow and the Hamble:  Newlyn, Helford River, River Yealm, Brixham, Poole.

I meant to write “the final blog” on the day that we got home, or at least by the end of that weekend, but somehow life has got in the way.  We have transitioned almost seamlessly from live-aboards to landlubbers, from weekly showers to daily ones, from obsessing about weather forecasts to simply looking out of the window and dressing accordingly.  Have we really only been home for ten days?  The endless happy days living on board Snow Goose are distilling themselves into a series of wonderful memories, and we feel so lucky that we were able to achieve our goal of sailing around Ireland with Eloise.

Having spent a full week in Padstow due to gales, we had some fairly uneventful passages home in almost no wind at all, which, frustratingly, meant we had to motor for much of the way.  Motoring is tedious because it is noisy, it burns diesel, and it means Angus and I have to hand steer continuously.  Since the demise of Jack, our self-steering tiller arm, we have tried numerous methods of lashing the tiller to steer us in a straight line, but none of these hold us on course for more than a couple of minutes, so they cannot be deployed for any length of time.  Jack is still with an Irish engineer who “may” be able to fix him, but does not seem in any particular rush to try, and as he know we are now home and dry, his enthusiasm to start the job has probably waned further.

The passage from Padstow to Newlyn was rather spectacular, especially rounding Land’s End, but there was quite a strange swell to begin with, and Eloise was sick for the first time in two months.  This took us all a bit by surprise – especially Angus, who was in the firing line - but was fortunately very short-lived.  In the busy fishing port of Newlyn, we moored beside a big, ocean-going yacht whose sails were hanging limply from its rigging, completely shredded.  The harbour master told us the sobering story of a 65-year-old single hander who had been brought in by the lifeboat three days previously during a gale, who was currently in hospital with a head injury and broken ribs.  A couple of days later we heard of a small yacht washed up, unmanned, on the French coast, having left Weymouth bound for Swanage two days earlier.  The coastguard was appealing for any information regarding the 61-year-old skipper.  These tales reminded us of the power of the sea, the importance of safety at all times, and to continue being careful now we were back in well-know waters on the home-stretch. 

We set off early from Newlyn with the east-going tide, with about an hour and a half to go before first light.  We had been hoping the full moon would light up the sea ahead of us, but the cloud was thick and the sea was inky black.  Given that we had seen a lot of fishing buoys on our way in to Newlyn the previous evening, and we were doing a coastal hop, we decided to use the search light until it got light.  Angus steered, Eloise slept, and I stood on the bow, scanning the beam of light from side to side, into the misty darkness ahead.  Although there was no wind, there was quite a swell, and I braced myself, knees bent, feet apart, clutching the forestay in one hand and the torch in the other.  There was so much moisture in the air that I could not focus the beam on the water more than a few metres ahead, so we would have little time to take avoiding action if I did spot something.  There were a number of white crests of waves, or seagulls, giving me a quick sense of dread, but nothing that we had to avoid.  After an hour and a half of squinting into the darkness, it began to get light, and with great relief I left Angus on deck and went below to put the kettle on.

Our early departure was rewarded with an early afternoon arrival in the Helford River, home of Frenchman’s Creek.  We took an early evening dinghy trip up this magical waterway, paddling along in almost eerie silence, and whispering to Eloise of pirate ships hidden in the trees.  Kingfishers darted along the riverbanks, and fish rose as we crept past them.  It was quite enchanting, and after some time, we saw a little creek to the right, where one could imagine that fictional pirate had hidden his boat from direct view of the main river, and the unsuspecting Dona had stumbled upon him.  What a powerful story that is – I vowed to dig out our Daphne du Maurier books and re-read them on our return. 

Reluctantly, but under pressure of needing to get home, we moved again the following day with the east-going tide, which fortunately gets an hour later each day and so was becoming very slightly less anti-social.  There was not even a ripple of breeze on the water, so we didn’t put up a sail, but instead joined the many other yachts motoring to their next destination.  We passed the mouth of Plymouth, accompanied by dolphins, and entered the River Yealm.  We were amazed to see so many boats moored in a small river, which cannot be seen from the sea at all.  It was even more magical than the Helford River, although our evening dinghy trip was slightly less cultural and imaginative; who could pass by the opportunity to visit the Ship Inn at Noss Mayo by dinghy?  What a lovely spot.

On we went the next day to Brixham, where we sampled delicious fresh fish, took Eloise on The Golden Hind (Sir Francis Drake’s ship), and were visited by Angus’ brother Jonny for dinner.  Our final long passage was to Poole, which necessitated a 1am departure to ensure we had the tide with us as we passed south of Portland Bill.  We could only laugh that our worst departure time of the entire trip was so close to the end of it.  The following day we left Poole for the Solent, shot up the North Channel past Hurst Castle with the tide under us, and were moored safely and securely at the top of the Hamble River before we knew it.

Actually that is not quite true; I came as close to falling into the sea as I did at any point on our entire trip during this final mooring escapade.  A huge barge is in the process of dredging, ready for a new marina at the boatyard where Snow Goose lives.  We had been told to go in the last space on the pontoon before the barge.  The tide was under us a bit as we approached, so it was difficult to go slowly.  There were two boats moored side by side in the spot just before ours.  I could see it was going to be tight for Angus to turn hard right into our spot, and the last thing we wanted was to end up on the enormous barge just beyond, so I made a rather foolish split-second decision to make for the pontoon with the line (rope) I had in my hand.  I leapt on to the outer moored boat as we passed it, aiming to climb from this boat to the inner boat, and then to the pontoon, still with my line.  But Snow Goose was still moving away down-tide, with Angus at the helm viewing the evolving situation in unspoken disbelief, and I was now holding the end of the line.  I was halfway over the second boat’s guardrail, clutching the line, which in turn was trying to pull me into the water.  With my rather enormous tummy impeding any further progress, I realised the only option was to let go of the line attached to Snow Goose.  I recovered myself, clambered over the inner boat to the pontoon, called to Angus, “I’m afraid there’s a line in the water…”, and he calmly turned Snow Goose into the tide, nipped up to the bow to get my discarded line back on board, threw it to me, and returned to the cockpit to bring us alongside.  It was a pretty unceremonious end to our trip, but there was no shouting, and fortunately there was no-one we knew there to witness it!

So, this is Snow Goose, signing off, and thanking you all for your interest in following our trip and keeping in touch while we were away.  Now, if you want to follow some REAL sailing, my younger sister Rosie is doing the Clipper Round the World Race 13-14, on board “OneDLL”.  They arrived in Rio last night after 29 days at sea.  Her blog is on roundtheworldrosie.wordpress.com, and if you drop my sister Serena an email (serenagosling@googlemail.com) she will add you to the distribution list.  There is also a fantastic race viewer on the Clipper website, www.clipperroundtheworld.com.

With love from all of us,

Snow Goose, Angus, Laura, Eloise and the Bump x