Southampton to Plymouth (29th June - 2nd July)

The beginning of the trip started at Shamrock Quay in Southampton. Rob and I both made it down on Friday and together with Selma, enjoyed a great curry at the highly recommended Coriander Lounge Curry House. You need to book.

Saturday morning was set aside for Jeremy to make it from his home in France and for some provisioning using Tesco Home-Delivery - how amazing is that. I take my hat off to Tescos. They rock up, they're always great and even take your stuff down to the boat ... what's not to like?

We decided we would break ourselves in gently so decided to just puddle down the coast to Lymington. Westerlies were set in for the next few days so rushing wasn't going to help.

We weren't too sad to leave Shamrock Quay (an MDL operated marina). It used to be one of our favourite Marina's, a place from which we have left for many big trips but to be honest it's gone a bit downhill. It feels like it's money before everything. It used to be that nothing was too much trouble but now anything is too much trouble. A real shame. Hey-ho it made setting off a bit easier.

The Good Ship snugged up at Shamrock Quay as we prepared for the 650 mile journey

Lymington Yacht Haven is the absolute opposite to MDL; they are fab. Great customer service guaranteed, an incredibly warm welcome and facilities that can only be described as 5 Star. It's true that you need to 'brace' for the bill but then hand cream in the men's toilets is going to cost a few bob.

The Good Ship snugged up in Lymington

Departing the Yacht Haven the following morning. Great fun dodging the car ferries whizzing over to Yarmouth
on the Isle of Wight

A very pleasant night in Lymington and we were off to Studland Bay. Strongish westerlies (F6) were forecast which means for us that progress starts to get very wet and if there's a sea running then a bit slow as well. We took the chance to show Jeremy some of the kit we have on the Good Ship to make life easier such as the Teabag Intervention Tool and the GASP (Gimballed Anti Spill Pan)

The Teabag Intervention Tool (TIT)

Goodbye to the Needles for at least a few years

Thinking and Kudos Emojis being practised by the crew ... the Face Palm emoji was the one that we
used most over the two weeks

The Good Ship pulling hard on her trusted Spade Anchor. Not so for the rest of the anchorage where a group of three rafted motorboats suffered the consequences of a very weedy bottom and dragged 150 metres into a Rassy. No harm done and very entertaining. We had already done our bit on that front when the anchorage watched a motorboat upwind of us pick up a lobster pot as a mooring and then drift onto us. He was very indignant and upset by the quality of moorings.

A tough row ashore by Rob was rewarded by great beer and lovely staff at the Studland Pub. Fellow Twister owners who had obviously been watching the good ship get squashed by a lobster-pot-dragging-motorboats came up and said hi as they restocked their depleted ice stocks. A Gin and Tonic without ice is just not what Twister owners do.

Studland Bay reminded me of the Caribbean

Next day we headed off for an overnight sail to Plymouth passing the famous Old Harry Rocks

As you would expect there are a variety of stories about the name. One is they are named after the devil (Old Harry ) who sat on them or maybe you prefer a famous Pirate, Harry Paye or if they don't take your fancy a Viking Story where a ninth-century Viking raid was thwarted by a storm and that one of the drowned men was turned into a pillar of chalk. Difficult to decide really. 

Anvil Point Lighthouse. You can stay close to this but have to leave St Albans and of course Portland considerably more respect.

A lovely dawn at 0516 in the morning

Approaching Cawsand and Plymouth

Cawsand from the drone

Brimbles Mast from Drone ... you don't get a snap like this by jumping up and down!

Approaching Plymouth and the famous Hoe

Brimble safely moored up in Queen Anne Battery Marina. As we approached they didn't answer the radio and then they weren't sure if they could fit us in; it was all a bit strange and then we realised they were MDL.

Whilst in Plymouth we visited The Royal Western Yacht Club. An astonishing history and well worth a visit. We met Becky the Cornish barmaid who proved to be a font of food knowledge. She revealed that whilst extremely expensive (£3.57) she had enjoyed the best ever Cornish Pasty in Falmouth and that as we were heading there we should have one. Unfortunately, she couldn't remember quite where in Falmouth she had bought it from. She also shared that she had had the best Chinese meal of her life in Derbyshire but that had been 11 years ago.

Queen Anne Battery Marina

So, a little bit of a slow start. Fabulous sunshine but perky westerlies were unsurprisingly slowing us down. Jeremy at this point had to head home so Rob and I were left to get the good ship to Falmouth to pick up our new crew Robert.

Next: Plymouth to Falmouth to Falmouth