To mainland Europe

The weather forecast for Sunday 15th September was ok when we checked on the Saturday evening so we were all ready to go. We checked again on Sunday morning and noticed a change. A trough had appeared about half way across and this could well indicate strong winds. However, they would be aft of the beam and our crew member was anxious to leave so we decided to set off. Had we been alone we would have waited for a more favourable forecast. Had we been alone, we would have been right and we would have picked up the westerlies that arrived a few days later. In future we will follow our own experience and judgement.

Our lovely daughter Heather gives us a forecast via satellite phone every day and, after a slow start in the first few days, she advised us to slow down in order to avoid the strong winds associated with the trough. This was extremely frustrating as we were starting to sail at a  decent speed. Nonetheless we followed her advice and when we did pick up the winds on Friday they were slightly less than they could have been at 25 knots true  from the NW. We were travelling just north of east,However, there were a lot of squalls and the gusts were 30 knots and more, which was a bit disconcerting to say the least.

By Sunday the gusts had gone and we settled into a lovely sail right through until after midnight on Monday.
At this point the wind dropped and we decided to turn the engine on as we hoped to be in harbour the next morning. The number of ships showing on the AIS was increasing and by the time Scruffbag came on watch it was clear that this was a popular route for ships heading to and from northern Europe. He had to call up two container ships that seemed to be on collision course. One was very friendly and stated his intention to move to starboard. The second one, however, was extremely rude. Maybe he was asleep and annoyed at being woken up. In any event we had to call him twice as he didn't seem to be moving and he finally moved to pass us by about a mile.
The shipping abated as we closed the coast and a pod of dolphins paid us a brief visit.

By mid morning we were tied up on the visitors' pontoon rafted next to a bigger aluminium yacht. On visiting the office we found that our friend, Pete, who lives locally and has a boat here, had booked our berth and we were able to move to a more comfortable location in the marina. It had been a long time since we had faced 6 months without moving onwards. The boat is due a good clean, some TLC and maybe some new gear.We already miss the sunshine but it will be good to be close to family once more.