Team Polar Bear is successful in their first mission (even if it took a couple months). Woo hoo! Part II.

We shared our bottle of wine (a lovely Pinot Noir that I brought with me from California) with Simon's friend, Cameron. It's nice to have friends in high places -- he let us moor up for free that night. He is one of many people whom Simon has inspired (at least in part) to take up sailing as a career. We run into such people with increasing frequency and I think it is quite remarkable. Anyway, the two of them also apparently got arrested in Africa (a tale I haven't heard fully yet), so I guess that is one of those experiences that bonds people for life. A future retro-chronicle, I think.

After wine, we took a water taxi into Salcombe town and had an unremarkable dinner and Irish coffee, before settling down for the evening. We walked up and down the narrow high street, which was filled with yachtie shops, but nothing that greatly impressed me. It was moderately busy as it was a Saturday night in June, but I would bet good money that it is normally very quiet.

The next morning we headed out early to catch the tides and conserve fuel. The wind was against us, so it looked like we would have to motor to get back on schedule.

Our original plan had been to stop the night before in Dartmouth and then head out into the English Channel more and get around the headland to a small bay in a nature reserve, where we would drop an anchor for the night. Fearing the unpredictability of our fuel supplies, we decided to add miles by going a less direct course, but stick closer to towns with fueling barges. We sailed into Dartmouth to fuel up around noon. Simon had told me a lot about Dartmouth (it has castles, beautiful houses, caves, an old square-rigged boat, access only by steam train or boat, a car ferry that is steered by a tug boat, and the naval college). Unfortunately, we weren't able to stop, but I took all these pictures driving in and out of the harbor. We'll go back, for sure.

We then headed towards Weymouth. Late that evening, just as the sun was going down, we arrived in the shallow waters outside of Weymouth and dropped anchor. We don't have a motor on our anchor chain, so Simon lowered it by hand. Henceforth, he shall be known as Hans, the beefy manly-man. I had the much more fun job of steering the boat and shifting the motor from forward, to neutral, to reverse, to neutral. Yup, I can handle that!

The bay outside of Weymouth was fabulously breathtaking. The beaches were white sand with red, sheer bluffs towering above them. The water was abandoned except for one tiny fishing trawler and about fifty lobster pots (it was a lobster pot minefield!). After we shut down the engine, we sat on the bow of the boat and looked at the moon in silence.
In that moment, I felt like I was in a dream. My life is just insane and I can't believe it is real. I couldn't believe in that moment that I was sitting in the midst of the great power and gentle beauty of the natural world, with nothing to do but enjoy it. I can't really describe that transcendental moment with justice, but I will say that it was surreal and awesome.

That night, in bed, the rock of the swell was more intense than I've ever felt, but also very relaxing. I practically purred like a kitten as I curled into the warm down of the sleeping bag and drifted off to sleep.

We awoke at 3:30 am. The tide was strong heading out of the bay and around the headland, so it was essential that we catch it at the right time. So, we were up, shivering in the idyllic moonlight, drinking coffee, and grumbling about time and tide and all that. Simon hauled up the anchor and I kicked her into gear. I told Simon I would be OK and that he should go back to bed. He did -- and he trusted me so much, that he slept with the door open, slung across the bed in his full foulies and shoes still on, ready to jump into action the second I crashed into something.

The swells were really big and the tide increased our speed by a swift four knots, but I got us around the headland with little trouble. I could hear French sailors on the radio as we pulled into the Channel.

Simon and I switched places and I slept for a couple hours. When I got up, we were pulling into another quiet bay to drop anchor as the tide had now turned against us. We were going to wait for a few hours, and then head to the Isle of Wight, which was on the far horizon.

This day was lovely. It was warm and sunny. We had the hatches open as we ate lunch and then took a nap in the sunlight. Just as we drifted back off to sleep in the rock of the ocean, I noticed what sounded like hundreds of little clicking noises -- like twenty people were typing on a typewriter in the next room, or like soft hail on a roof. "What's that noise?" I asked Simon, rousing him slightly.

"It's fish and crabs eating the grass on the side of our boat." He answered sleepily.

Wow, I thought. It was such a cool sound. I listened to it for a long time and thought about ways to fix up the boat and make her pretty and homey.

Laying in the sun felt so good, I almost didn't want to get up... but the Isle of Wight offered showers, which I hadn't had in days, so it didn't take much coaxing to get going again. Soon we were sailing through "the Needles," which is apparently famous for its shipwrecking capabilities as it is a shallow and rocky channel. Simon pointed out old forts and a Victorian battery.

We got into Cowes earlier than expected by an hour. Driving up the mouth of the river Medina to the marina, I asked Simon if it was "Moo-dina." He groaned.Pulling into the marina, at least two other skippers shouted out to Simon as friends. I guess I am in his home territory now, so I'll have to get used to people he knows seeing us, even when I look awful for not having had a shower in days. Fortunately, that was quickly remedied and we wandered into a pub for dinner and a well-done beer.

Cowes high street looks just like all the high streets I saw in London suburbs, but again with more yachtie stores. It was nice to see Cowes, where Simon will often be this summer for work, but it wasn't amazing, like the two bays we had just been in. I figure I will get to know it a lot better later in this summer during Cowes Week.

The next morning, we got up at 8:30 to drive across to Portsmouth, for our haul-out at 1 pm. That should be easily accomplished, and we had pushed hard to get to Cowes by this time as Simon did not want to "trip just as we approach the finish line."

Alas, tripping occurred nonetheless.

We got to the fuel barge for a little back up fuel, just in case. They asked us to wait a few minutes while they finished getting diesel off of the tanker that had arrived that morning. "Half an hour" the man on the fuel barge assured us. An hour and a half later, we were fueled up, but had missed the tide. At nearly full steam, we were going a mere four knots and the wind was completely dead.

At least the slow speed allowed us to fully enjoy views of Spinnaker Tower, the navy yard, and the HMS Victory. We basked in the sun on the deck, although it wasn't particularly warm.

We didn't make it to Port Solent marina until 2 pm. We missed our haul out, but they let us stay on the pontoon until the next morning, when they would haul us out first thing.
We made it! More well done beers and a couple lamb burgers were our reward.