We are home 9th july

 

We slipped our mooring in Lyme at 8:30 giving us 2 hours to sail to Seaton and the mouth of the river Axe. Even on our last sail the wind was determined to make us work giving us a beat into the waves with a 17 to 25kt of wind. No full sail easy reach, it was reefed sails and a windy wet final 2 hours sailing high as possible to get around another headland.
The river mouth finally came into view and so did the surf hitting the beach. The river Axe is not the easiest harbour to get into. It’s a narrow entrance and once in the channel you then have to make a 90degree turn to the left to enter the main harbour. At low water it’s less than a foot deep and the shingle bar shifts around so one day you might enter straight on and another at 45 degrees. We had checked with the club beforehand so knew it was straight this time.
We were entering at high water which on a light wind day with no swell is a simple motor in. Today we had wind and a reasonable swell with waves breaking on the beach and rolling through the entrance. After lining up and a check behind for waves I went for it, all ok then one large wave twisted us nearly 90 degrees to port, too late to go back out I just steered for the entrance gave full throttle and we were through round the bend and in the calm of the harbour, phew!!
Alongside the entrance there were friends and family and Barney my dog on the beach waving, cheering and blowing horns, it was a fantastic and unexpected reception. As we motored to the pontoon I could see flags and people and thought “that’s just what I need people and boats on the pontoon where I’m trying to moor. As we got closer we realised it was a second reception committee, again with horns and cheers, fantastic and thanks to everyone who was there.
Well we did it, a bit faster than expected but then we were lucky with the weather as we didn’t have any big storms and were only held up twice, in the Scillys and in the Hebrides. The wind could have been kinder and given us a bit more down wind sailing but that’s life.
A great adventure and fantastic experience. First thanks must go to Eddie for putting up with me, I wouldn’t and couldn’t have done it with out him. Thanks also to Roger for crewing when we picked Sancler up from Brightlingsea and for joining us in Scarborough for some of our best sails. Thanks to Moira, Tom and Lizzy for putting up with me talking about the boat and sailing for the last 6 months and of course thanks to Sancler, the boat as she behaved impeccably being solid, stable and safe at all times.

Now I’m home With good wifi I will post some more pictures and stats on the trip. I hope this has been interesting and maybe encouraged you to go and see some of the places we have visited, I will certainly go back and see more whether by boat or car. As someone else said, a sail around the coast just shows you the places you want to go back to.