Land's End

We left Falmouth on Sunday morning at 8am and had a pleasant sail round the Lizard and a slightly less pleasant sail to Land's End with the wind in our faces and a big swell. Once round the corner we were delighted to be able to put up the spinnaker and sail inside the Longships light past the Armed Knight and Kettle's Bottom rocks. We saw the Shark's Fin looking very convincing, and passed the Brisons at 4.30pm. Lori's Video is great and I will put in up when I can.
With the tide under us we set off across the Bristol Channel 95 miles to Wales. In the first two hours and twenty minutes we covered twenty miles! Progress was excellent but at dusk we took down the spinnaker and unfurled our small jib. To my surprise we didn't slow down much and stormed on through the night. The watch system worked well and Kate and David saw a pod of dolphins while eating porridge at 4am while Graham and Lori saw theirs later in daylight. By 9 am we were off St Ann's Head and decided as the tide was right to carry on to Fishguard.

At Skomer we diverted in search of puffins and were delighted to see hundreds along with awks and guillemots. We knew Kithros 2 had spent the night at Skomer North Haven and had hopes of seeing her. Of course wily old Bill had left at 4am and was already half way to Barmouth.
By tea time we were off Strumble Head and approached Fishguard in a heavy downpour.
The crew wheedled me into entering the Old Harbour at Fishguard shortly after low water with keel and rudder up so we could go alongside the wall. Not good for the skipper's nerves!
They had hatched a plot they broke to me over chilli and rice. All were keen to continue as the wind was fair so we washed up and untied and set off again at 10pm for Barmouth. Graham and Lori disregarded the sensible plan to make 5 knots for 10 hours and recklessly sailed at 10 knots for three hours! Doing the maths in the night it was clear we had to slow down as we would arrive far too early at the bar. Dave and Kate were the killjoys who took down the main and put out a scrap of jib and pottered downwind past Aberystwyth. We arrived off Barmouth in time for tea and toast before picking out the channel buoys and entering the Harbour at 10.30am.

I am now on a train home to Topsham for Rosie's birthday so will post some pictures later and report on the scrutineering and the race preparations. Thanks to all the fabulous delivery crew for a lot of fun and exciting sailing.