It seems I can't stay away from this thing! I have completely redone the online photo album of this cruise. For the very brave/foolhardy there are 249 pictures in the link below. Some, if not most, are probably dotted around the various blog posts over the past eighteen months. I am not a sufficiently good photographer to be able to have 250 odd extra good photos exclusive of the ones I have put online already.
Cruise Album
Happy viewing I hope!
Wednesday, 17 September 2014
Wednesday, 10 September 2014
The End of the Cruise
Well, we have closed the circle now and brought Sarah Giddings to her old mooring in Torpoint. This is where our crusie really started in August of 2011. I had managed to negotiate a two month sabbatical from work as a chance to dip out toes in the long distance thing. We loved it of course so set out to do the job properly. Now the job has been done properly and we are back where we started. Truly, the cruise can be said to be over. Sadly, the last bit was all motoring in flat calm from Fowey. Still, we will be laying her up in the Exeter Canal Basin so hope to get some last sailing in before the end of the season.
It has been a wonderful experience for us and we are planning the next one already. It is impossible to choose any one part as a real highlight unless it was our first ocean landfall at Porto Santo in the Madeira group. We can honestly say we loved nearly all of it. Even the frustrating bits like being becalmed in the western approaches are a good part of it in retrospect.
Arriving in Plymouth Sound and picking up the mooring here at Torpoint was a slightly odd experience though. All the very familiar landmarks came up along with our first proper experience of strong tides in nearly three years. The welcome here at the Harbour was very friendly as well and we were pleased to tell them that we will be taking a mooring here next year.
Next year we will be back to coastal cruising and we plan to explore Brittany as well, which will be a new cruising ground for us to visit. Of plans for further extended cruising, it will take a few years to top up the kitty. When we do go we hope to cover much the same ground but much more slowly. Time will tell.
For now, this will be the last blog post of this cruise and I will be updating things much less regularly – essentially when there is something cruise related to tell rather than of our day to day stuff in either work or coastal cruising.
Here are a few pictures of major stages in the cruise along with the parting shot of Plymouth I took in August 2011.
What it looked like when we left:
Arrival in 2014!
A few "highlights"
First view of Gibraltar at the start of the proper cruise
Cabo Trafalgar
Rabat - we leave Europe
A crooked landfall at Porto Santo
Landfall at Cabo Verde
Indian River - Dominica
Waterspout Mid-Atlantic
Landfall at Azores
First sight of Blighty after eighteen months
It has been a wonderful experience for us and we are planning the next one already. It is impossible to choose any one part as a real highlight unless it was our first ocean landfall at Porto Santo in the Madeira group. We can honestly say we loved nearly all of it. Even the frustrating bits like being becalmed in the western approaches are a good part of it in retrospect.
Arriving in Plymouth Sound and picking up the mooring here at Torpoint was a slightly odd experience though. All the very familiar landmarks came up along with our first proper experience of strong tides in nearly three years. The welcome here at the Harbour was very friendly as well and we were pleased to tell them that we will be taking a mooring here next year.
Next year we will be back to coastal cruising and we plan to explore Brittany as well, which will be a new cruising ground for us to visit. Of plans for further extended cruising, it will take a few years to top up the kitty. When we do go we hope to cover much the same ground but much more slowly. Time will tell.
For now, this will be the last blog post of this cruise and I will be updating things much less regularly – essentially when there is something cruise related to tell rather than of our day to day stuff in either work or coastal cruising.
Here are a few pictures of major stages in the cruise along with the parting shot of Plymouth I took in August 2011.
What it looked like when we left:
Arrival in 2014!
A few "highlights"
First view of Gibraltar at the start of the proper cruise
Cabo Trafalgar
Rabat - we leave Europe
A crooked landfall at Porto Santo
Landfall at Cabo Verde
Indian River - Dominica
Waterspout Mid-Atlantic
Landfall at Azores
First sight of Blighty after eighteen months
Tuesday, 2 September 2014
First Week Back
We have been a week back here now and are now more or less used to being up here now. We haven't got used to the cold yet! We have also started the process of looking for work - another depressing feature but a necessary one. We have now also got a date for moving back into our house in London and will be in a house in the middle of October. In the meantime we will be pottering along the south Cornwall and Devon coastline until we get to the river Exe where we will be laying up.
Falmouth has been very busy owing to the Classics regatta coinciding with a visit by the tall ships fleet. After a few days it all became a bit busy for us so we fled up the river for a couple of days. It is beautiful up there.
Classics/Tall Ships was photogenic of course.
Falmouth has been very busy owing to the Classics regatta coinciding with a visit by the tall ships fleet. After a few days it all became a bit busy for us so we fled up the river for a couple of days. It is beautiful up there.
Classics/Tall Ships was photogenic of course.
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