Mary-L: delivered

Dad gave me a lift down to Portishead Friday evening after work, getting us there for around 2030. After first grabbing my waterproofs and a head torch from Calstar, I ambled over to the other side of the marina to meet up with Dan aboard "Mary-L". His eldest daughter Ellie was there also, going over the decks with a rag and bucket of water, cleaning up the mud her dad had tracked aboard when bringing Mary-L back in from where she'd been staying for the last month or so on a mooring in The Hole outside the marina. Our third crew member, Sara, turned up a short while later with her fella, Robin.

After saying hello to Dan, Sara and Robin and helping me load my kit aboard, Dad wondered off to find himself some supper. His own plan was to stay on Calstar for the night and in the morning apply a liberal dose of jet-wash to her decks to remove some of the green that had accumulated over the winter.

Mary-L is a 25' fin-keeled Cobra 750. A little smaller that Calstar, but still with standing room below decks, and ample space to accommodate the three of us for the passage to come.

With a couple of hours still to kill before our midnight lock, we headed back to Dan's house to take Ellie home and say hello to his wife Ana, picking up another jerry can of diesel from the garage on the way back.

We still weren't completely settled in our overall plan or sure how far we could actually get in a couple of days. Despite Monday being a bank holiday, Sara needed to be back ashore and heading home by Sunday evening, so whilst that didn't completely rule out getting around the corner to Newlyn or Penzance, Padstow seemed a more likely outcome.

On paper, I'd worked out it was 174 miles to Newlyn. Part of the problem was that I had no idea what Mary-L was capable of with her engine. At 25' basing our passage plan on a 4 knot average didn't seem overly optimistic, but I was quite aware it could just as easily prove to be closer to 3. As for the tides, in the Bristol Channel the flood comes in faster than the ebb goes out, so even if we sailed across the tides as was my original plan, they wouldn't actually even themselves out.

So I had a veritable collection of potential plans and contingencies in mind and the intention to suck it and see, adjusting our plan and intentions as the passage went on. The one thing they all had in common however, was that we'd depart at 0000, punching the last couple of hours of the flood tide down the King Road and out towards the Holmes, then use the ebb to take us as far as Minehead where, in the light of the following morning, we could then assess how boat and crew were doing and decide on that how to proceed.

Under the glow of the lock's green lights, we cast off at 2345, Dan on the helm, Sara tending the bow line and me the stern. Entering the lock, we went alongside, port to, without any mishap and made Mary-L fast for the descent. Some ten minutes later, the lock gates opened a crack to hasten the drop of the last meter or so, and then level with the channel outside, creaked and groaned to open fully. 

We waved our thanks to the night watch in the marina office above, and goodbye to Dad who'd come to watch our departure, and pushed off into the waiting gloom. A minute later, the marina called us up on the VHF, and after thanking him for the observation, I threw the switch that would turn our nav lights on.

Out past the breakwater, we picked up a back eddy close to the Portishead shore that carried us down under the intermittent flash of the light on Battery Point. There was a slight chop over the water despite the lack of wind, which glittered beneath the light of a half moon still high in the star speckled sky above us.

An hour or so later, making good progress down the King Road towards Clevedon, a cargo ship out of Portbury ploughed its way passed us, lights flaring in the gloom. We discussed deciding a rota for the watch, but, for the first night at least, which would take us out of the confines of the upper channel, I was going to stay up. It was already gone midnight, in any case, so not so very long until dawn. Dan elected to stay up with me, napping on deck at intervals. Sara went down below to catch some sleep. It seemed a good idea to have at least one of us fresh in the morning.

Around 0300, still enjoying the moon speckled night, the tide had now turned and carrying us along nicely. I was watching the green flash of the starboard lateral "Hope" a couple of miles ahead of us, when I realised I hadn't seen the light on Flat Holm yet, which by now should've been clearly visible for a while.

I was still pondering this, when Hope's green light disappeared.

There is always something decidedly eerie about entering a fog bank, and even more so in the dark of night. It closed around us like a shroud and visibility dropped to almost nothing. We passed within less than half a cable's length of the lateral buoy, and other than a green glow in the vapour laden air that eventually began to shine before finally coalescing, briefly, into the light itself, you wouldn't have known it was there.

We passed swiftly between the Holms, hugging the southern side of the gap to stay as clear of the shipping channel as we could, although we were monitoring VTS on channel 12, so if anything had been coming up or down, we should've heard them. The two islands were invisible masses, lurking in the darkness.

I like the upper reaches of the Bristol Channel, it's so well marked you always know where you are, navigation is a simple thing. There are also therefore plenty of things to hit. It was a night to be grateful for the electronics we had aboard. Without the chart plotter to tell us exactly where we were, things would've been so much more fraught.

The fog stayed with us through the night and into the dawn, which, her crew on watch sustained by a bucket load of home-made sausage rolls that Dan's wife Ana had prepared for us, saw Mary-L passing Minehead and approaching the headland of Foreland Point. Sunrise, much anticipated through the long hours of the night's watch, was something of a damp squib; nothing more than an apologetic lessening of the gloaming into an increasingly lighter grey.

Passing Foreland, the tide began to turn against us, so we put in towards the land, hugging the Somerset shore. It's a beautiful coastline to sail along, when you can see it.

Mary-L's little engine had been valiantly pushing her through the water at a steady 5 knots, sounding not in the least laboured. As the foul tide began to bite in earnest, I watched the speed over ground reduce to 4, but every so often a back eddy across one of the bays we were traversing would lift it back up again. The small tide was proving as benign as I'd hoped it was going to be and we were still making good progress, so, happy we had enough fuel and time being the bigger factor for Dan than the cost of it, we elected to continue to punching the flood tide.

Passing Ilfracombe mid morning, the fog finally began to break giving us a glimpse of the harbour town as we slipped past, still close to shore to avoid the worst excesses of the tide.

Within an hour or so it had lifted, and passing Bull Point, close in as there seemed to be no overfalls to concern ourselves with, we could see the island of Lundy in the far distance to the west. We turned away to lay a course for Hartland. The sea smoothed and our speed over ground picked back up as the tide turned once again in our favour.

Dan warmed up lunch in the oven; a delicious chilli Ana had prepared for us and sent with him. Smooth sea, fair tide, full belly and good visibility, I finally felt comfortable to head below for a nap, leaving Dan and Sara on watch. I asked them to wake me if anything changed. Or dolphins were sighted. I'm still a total big kid when it comes to dolphins.

It was a comfortable bunk in the tight confines of the quarter-berth, but an unsettled sleep, my mind still a little stressed from sailing blind through the fog and gloom of the night before, I guess. About ninety minutes after I'd put my head down, I dreamt or half heard Dan up on the helm call "Help me". I stirred, coming back awake reluctantly, only to hear him call again.

I shot out of my bunk like a torpedo out of its tube, but with my feet still tangled in the stubborn grip of my sleeping back, I went flying across the main cabin, the inside of my upper arm hitting something quite hard as I came down.

I untangled myself and climbed up above, calling to Dan to ask what was wrong, not able to see Sara in the cockpit and asking where she was, my heart racing.

"She's on the foredeck, dolphins!" he said, "You asked me to get you up if there were dolphins?"

The dolphins were a delight. Sleek, playful, as inquisitive about us as we were about them. A pod of about a half dozen, they stayed with us for about twenty minutes and, by the time they departed, left the three of us grinning at each other like fools, delighted in our good luck.

The sea smoothed out as the afternoon wore on, and a slight breeze moved astern. We passed Hartland Point at 1500, close in in the absence of any overfalls, motor-sailing under the genoa and making around 6 knots with the fair tide.

Across the last couple of tides, fair and foul, we'd averaged 5 knots over the ground. When Dan had originally asked me to come earlier in the week, he'd mentioned that he'd like to get around the corner if we could, and make Newlyn or even Falmouth if possible. We'd originally anticipated having until Monday to complete it, but Sara needed to be back ashore by Sunday evening, and truth be told, my own domestic bliss would be much improved if I could do the same.

The get out if we couldn't make the corner and Newlyn by Sunday afternoon was Padstow. And the decision point for this was Hartland.

Across the week preceding, I'd worked out the distances, and with a range of potential average speeds, worked out our likely ETA for each. I'd backed that up by setting the route into the savvy navvy app with a range of possible boat speeds to double check what the art of the possible was.

As Saturday had progressed on the approach to Hartland and I'd become increasing confident about the 5 knot average, I'd done a simple division of the miles shown as remaining on the plotter, and had, for some time, been coming up with an ETA in the early hours of Monday morning. That was too late for Sara, and would see us arriving in the pot strewn waters of Mounts Bay on our approach to Newlyn in the dark, something I wasn't happy about.

So we'd been discussing the likelihood of putting into Padstow. His heart set on getting around the corner, Dan wasn't delighted by the idea, but was content and understood the likely necessity. Of Hartland Point, the division on the remaining miles confirming the prognosis, I fired up savvy navvy on my phone and plotted a course from our current position to Newlyn, just to double check before we committed.

Newlyn, Sunday, 0800. Sara made the quite fair point that this was completely at odds with what the miles and our averages on the other plotter had been telling us all afternoon. So I went back to the plotter running on my Samsung tablet and scrutinised the route. And almost immediately spotted my mistake. 

When I'd dialled the route into the plotter app on my tablet earlier in the week, we'd had half an idea that we'd try for Falmouth, so I'd set that as our final destination. When it became clear that we'd be looking to only make Newlyn or Penzance in the time we had, I'd not then updated the route; it's essentially the same for the first 160 miles or so until you round Lands End.

So our early hours Monday projected ETA had actually been for the Fal, not Mounts Bay, which was 30 miles shorter. Meaning Lands End was still achievable. We discussed our options, caveated by the fact that things could still go wrong, everything looked good for Sunday morning, but we could still be delayed by any number of things happening. But we were all agreed. Our course was set for Lands End.

Again, provisioned by Ana, supper was Spanish chicken, warmed through in the oven by Dan. I think I have a talent for picking people to sail with who know how to feed me well.

As we approached dusk, some ten miles or so offshore from Padstow, I agreed with Dan and Sara they could take the first watch of the night and I the second, so at 2000 went below, setting my alarm for around midnight. Approaching dawn on Sunday morning we'd be off Longships, and we'd all want to be up for that.

I slept well, albeit restricted to lying on my left side because of the pain and bruising in my right arm.

Around 2330, I awoke to the sound of the engine changing. Sara had come below and mentioned that Dan might need my help. It was raining and there was a bit of a sea running. I pulled on my waterproofs, careful not to get thrown off my feet; I could see Dan at the helm up in the cockpit, tiller in hand, autohelm disengaged, looking damp and a little concerned.

I climbed up the companionway into a night as black as pitch. Thick rain obscured the lights of the distant shore and the glare of the plotter, still set to the daylight colour mode, killed any night vision. The chart was zoomed out so that the distant sure shore was visible, but you could see little of the boat's 12 minute course line.

The bow was rising and falling over each wave in a shower of spray. Dan was cold, very wet and more than a little disorientated. "I think there might be something wrong with the rudder, we're going in circles", he said.

I switched the colour scheme of the plotter to night mode, and zoomed back in so that our 12 minute line was very obvious. I adore that line, it's the main reason I use the Marine Navigator app in preference to Navionics.

I took the helm from Dan, and just held it steady. The course steadied out on a north-westerly bearing. I engaged the autohelm and brought the engine back up to speed so that we had our 5 knots through the water again, then by intervals of -10°'s brought our heading back on to our intended course.

The night was dark and grim, but I could see the lights of the shore begin to flicker into view as the squall of rain finally eased.

The tide had turned. I think the change of pressure on the rudder had caused the autohelm to begin to hunt. It had done the same for me earlier in the fog of the morning earlier that day when the ebb had turned to flood. I think that had caused Dan to take the helm in hand, but cold, wet and without any visible reference point he'd then simply become disorientated in the dark.

Easily done. And easily fixed by bringing up the fresh set of eyes of somebody that was warm and dry. Or as fresh as they could be after three and a half hours of sleep.

I took over the watch. Sara went below to sleep, and Dan wrapped himself up in a "dryrobe" his wife Ana had made him bring and went below to try and get warm. Sara and I had laughed at him earlier in the trip, making fun of him and calling him names that I won't dignify in type, but riffed around the theme of Salcombe and the particular class of persons that frequent that lovely little harbour town.

But it was proving it's worth now.

The night wore on without further mishap. Mary-L pushed her way through the lumpy sea, at times  climbing the swell and then burying her nose in the wave ahead as she fell off the top of the one she'd just crested. But although there was a lot of spray, she has a very dry cockpit, so aside from the occasional face-full of salty wash as I peered over the sprayhood into the darkness ahead, I was comfortable.

Approaching abeam of St Ives, I could see four flashing yellow/white lights off our port bow, but could see nothing and expected nothing there on the chart. I spent the next half hour slightly anxious that our course was leading onto a yellow "special purpose" buoy I had somehow overlooked; there were a four of them along with a couple of cardinals not very far to our starboard that marked a "wave hub" I was keeping south of to avoid.

Distances are deceptive at night. After an anxious half hour or so with nothing much changing, I realised that I was looking at the light of Pendeen, some seven or eight miles distant, four white flashes with a 16 mile range.

A short while later, returning like a most unwelcome friend, the fog rolled back in to devour them. The night turned thick and grey, the only visible distraction the showers of spray as Mary-L's bow crashed through the swell.

Our course took us within half a mile of the light at Pendeen, but through the thick fog the powerful beacon remained totally invisible, the night shrouded in darkness. It stayed with us through till dawn, again, less a sunrise than an apologetic seeping of light into the grey murk.

Dan had, at some point in the night, re-joined me on deck, still shrouded in his dryrobe. We were making good progress, everything running to plan, but I was beginning to despair of our chances of sighting Longships and Lands End though the murk.

And then the light atop Longships glimmered ahead, faded by the fog but quite certain.

There are two options for rounding Lands End. The inner passage, which takes you between the rocks of Longships and the land, or the outer passage, which is perhaps less fraught, but can add miles to the journey if you're heading for Mounts Bay rather than Falmouth and there is any kind of sea running. The overfalls off Lands End are formidable and enjoy a vicious reputation.

We discussed our options. It was getting light and, whilst there was some swell, it seemed to be easing. But the problem with the inshore passage isn't the rocks, but pots and the very real threat of getting one of them wrapped around your prop or rudder in the fog.

The fog was easing. Conscious that we were tired, aware it could roll back in at a moment's notice, we elected for the outer passage. The tides very very neap, the wind no more than 4 knots, if that, and we'd timed our arrival for Devonport HW+4, which was my best guess, looking at the chaos of the tidal atlas, for a favourable change of tide and the nearest approximation to slack water we were likely to get here, what with the conflicting flows of the Bristol and English channels converging about the mass of the headland. I was optimistic the tidal race would be subdued.

We woke Sara, and by the time she'd come up on deck, the fog had receded back to the land, hanging off the cliffs of Cornwall in gloaming menace, but giving us a wonderfully clear view of Longships as we went around. 

The tidal race to the east of the headland was quiet, as we'd hoped, but then, suddenly, was the engine. I glanced up at the wind vane, the wind was terribly light, but pushing us to shore. I began to run through the sequence for raising the sails in my head, poised to move, whilst Dan looked to the engine.

It was a silly problem, easily solved. As I'd moved forward in the confines of the cockpit, I must've hit the engine stop with my boot. Dan turned the key, and she chugged dutifully, immediately back into life.

Leaving Longships astern, the fog quickly enveloped us once again. Entering Mounts Bay, passing the harbour village of Mousehole, we were briefly joined by a very weary looking swallow. He perched on the guard rails awhile, clearly uneasy with our company, but uncertain of the distance to land in the thick fog. He made several abortive attempts to fly away, but circled back each time, clearly struggling to gain the height to clear our freeboard and regain the rail.

Then the island the covers the front of the harbour at Mousehole broke into sight through a gap in the murk and he was gone, his erstwhile and temporary shipmates quietly cheering him on as he made his final bid for landfall.

We picked up one of the visitor's buoys outside Penzance. High water was due for a little after 1400, so the Wet Dock gate would open an hour or two before that. It was a cheaper and, perhaps, more secure place for Dan to leave Mary-L for the week or two he needed before he could pick her journey eastwards back up again.

By 1400 we were ashore, met by Martin, a friend of Dan's who lives locally, and his lovely family, and lead to a pub where we had a very, very welcome pint or two of Tribute and lunched on some very fine, local caught cod and chips. A little more than an hour after that we were on the train home.

It was a good trip: 170 nautical miles covered over 34 hours underway, all of it, by necessity, on engine. Dan's a good friend, but it was a pleasure to meet Sara and they were both very, very easy company for the passage.

And I've now rounded Lands End from both the east and west. One of these days I'll actually have to do it under sail.