25th July – Monday
We both woke early this morning, although Chris was up first putting the kettle on for a cuppa before we went across for a shower. The night had been a damp, cold one and Carole went round wiping off the condensation from the insides of all the windows, which we haven’t done for a while. After showers and breakfast, Chris brought the outboard engine in from the inflatable boat and secured the little boat ready for towing. Once everything else was tidy down below, we slipped our lines and motored across to the waiting pontoon to top up our water tanks. By 9 o’clock we were on our way out of the Yealm with Chris concentrating on his course and Carole stowing away fenders and lines.
For a while we had to continue under engine as we were heading straight into wind, but once we had passed Ram Head we had a good enough angle on the wind to get both main and genoa sails out and maintain a speed of between 3.5 – 6 knots. After a few hours sailing, we had to put on some waterproofs as the sky became very dark and we thought we were really going to get caught in a downpour. However, we were a bit lucky as what we got was more like a shower so we didn’t get soaked. The wind was picking up a bit (to around 16.5 knots) and so we sensibly put in a couple of reefs to make our sail more comfortable. We also had to put in a couple of short tacks to keep us on course and away from those pesky little rocks.
The last few miles seemed to drag on, but at last our destination was in sight and so we brought in the sails and started the engine ready to enter the River Fowey. Chris radioed in to the Harbour Master and we then proceeded upriver to find a mooring for the night. There was nothing at Mixtow Pill (a very comfortable spot) but we found a very good space on one of the visitors pontoons not far away and a kind gentleman from Plymouth took our bow line and made our arrival nice and easy.
By the time we had got ourselves settled, it was a bit late to take the dinghy into the town, so we had an hour’s relaxing with a book before getting dinner sorted. Carole then got washed up and tidy while Chris began catching up on our blog. Carole then joined him and there we were, both tapping away, trying to remember what we had been doing over the last couple of days.