Mixing it with the dolphins to Milford Haven

Bottlenose Dolphin playing around the boat

Summary: Falmouth to Neyland Marina in Milford Haven. 172.3 miles in 25 hours. Wind from more or less ahead nearly all the way, so a quite a bit of motorsailing, but managed to sail around half the passage. Weather – generally grey and murky with Wind mainly from NW/W 4-5.

After waiting for days for a reasonable forecast in Falmouth, we finally got a window of sorts, though with less than ideal winds forecast to be from the N/NW – just where we wanted to go. So, we set off around 10am Monday to try and catch the tide first at the Lizard and then the north going stream at Lands End. Motorsailed most of the way to Lands End and finally – past the Longships lighthouse and we are heading north. The wind then kicked in reasonably from the NW and occasionally west and we managed to sail through most of the night, though we took in one reef and went down to 2/3 jib for the night as the wind gusted 5 occasionally. Then, sods law, about 3 hours out from Milford Haven with the east going stream just beginning, the wind headed us completely and we had to motorsail the last part into murky grey and wet weather with the wind more or less right on the nose. Not a classic passage, but functional.