Weymouth to Dartmouth

This was one of those "get up early to take advantage of the tide" trips. Ideally we also wanted to arrive in Dartmouth around slack water time as berthing in some of the tighter spots when the river is really running can be "amusing".

Throwing all that lot into the melting pot meant a stupidly early departure of around 5am and a slightly faster cruise speed than normal (1650 rpm) to get us into Dartmouth at high water.  It also meant an exceedingly early pre trip walk for Izzy.  She was exceedingly excited by a trip to the beach at 4.30 am.  Those of us accompanying her were less so.

The track looks like this (with a wobbly bit crossing Lyme bay to avoid a fishing boat):

The forecast had changed a lot - from a benign NE 3 to a SW4 to 5. Annoying as it meant wind over tide for most of the run. Sure enough once clear of Portland Bill we had the usual short steep waves dragged up so it wasn't the calmest of trips to start with. As the tide eased and we got more into the shelter of the land near Dartmouth it calmed down dramatically again, time for a nice flybridge run.

Colin, the BA fly boy, emailed us to wish us well on our trip across the Atlantic ocean. He had been stalking us on Marinetraffic and seen this:

Somehow Marinetraffic.com had interpreted this:

to be Halifax Canada. We were not quite ready to do that trip - no boat prep, window storm covers at home, no charts, food not on board for a transatlantic run, no weather router arranged and Anne was wanted at home soon to look after some about to break up from school kids. Memo to self - should use proper ISO codes on the AIS destination screen in future. However, we think that GB DTM might confuse the average leisure boater (like us).

We had thought of little Izzy and keeping her amused during the trip. She had a couple of chew bone things bought for her. When she was presented with the first one on the flybridge she clearly did not want to eat it, instead patrolled around with bone in mouth looking for a spot to hide it. Guess what, there are none. So, she took it into the corner near to a drain opening and tried to dig the little hole into something bigger with her paw. Fibreglass 1, dog 0:

Undeterred she then tried to push non existent soil or sand or something over the bone with her nose. Most industrious but pointless. Later on she saw us peeking in the direction of the chew bone, took it down to the saloon and hid it behind a cushion. Lovely. At least it wasn't part chewed.

As we approached Dartmouth Anne was treated to her first sight of dolphins at sea. Unfortunately they popped up just as the crew was calling Dart Marina to see if they had a space for us and when they answered the phone, the crew just shouted "dolphins" at them. Probably not had that greeting before. No dolphin pictures for you, sorry, but you know what they look like anyway.

Arriving in a sun drenched Dartmouth was as lovely as usual:

made even more special as John, Irene and Archie the Lakeland terrier (you've seen them in here before) were on the quayside waving. We had to reverse into a finger berth so we were glad that the trip planning was to get us into Dartmouth around high water. The stream really can run viciously through the marina. Second happy surprise was that Ray and Sara (Mr Blackrock yachting, look at their website and give Ray a call if you fancy anything with a Jenneau or Brig label on it) were also berthed here. A very social time lay ahead perhaps.

Numbers

For those who can be bothered - nothing special or big about this little trip. It took around 8 hours at 1650 rpm to make the best of the tide and arrive at slackish water. That worked very well. Nothing dramatic on the equipment front, but we did give the wing engine a good workout to ensure its physical fitness and also to burn off some of the now old diesel in the dedicated supply tank (over a year in there but protected by Stanadyne additive). The wing prop clearly suffered during the period of inactivity when we were moving the toddlers into Hythe - it must be well coated with barnacles as it is around 200rpm down on max revs now. No desire to go diving to scrape them off though.