Homeward Bound

May - August 2002

At long last, it was time for us to say good-bye to 32 degrees centigrade and the crystal clear waters of the BVI. Our last anchorage was Cooper Island. We were treated to two sea turtles which swam all around the boat for the two days we were there. We went back to Village Cay Marina to prepare 'Sulmar' for her voyage across the Atlantic on the ship 'Santa Maria'.

With business to attend to, we flew home to Glasgow, Scotland on May 19th, leaving 'Sulmar' to be delivered to the ship the 'Santa Maria' by a professional skipper. We were home in time for Mark's third birthday. After a busy two weeks at home, we flew to Southampton on June 6th for her unloading. When we arrived, we found that several pieces of equipment had been damaged when she was loaded in Tortola, inlcuding the VHF arial, Navtex arial and GPS arial. Apparently, one of the lifting cables had got out of control, in strong wind conditions, clipping the transom and the top of the mast. We had been warned to expect some rust marks caused by rust chips in the soot from the ship's funnels. We were amazed to find that Sulmar's topsides were covered in orange streaks! Although we were dissapointed to have sustained any damage, on reflection, this is probably less wear and tear than we could have expected sailing across the Atlantic.

Once unloaded, we motored two miles up to Ocean Village, a marina in the centre of Southampton, and began the long job of replacing all the equipment that had been removed for the shipment. The following morning, we set off down Southampton Water, keeping out of the way of the vast number of large tankers in the channel. The wind picked up to a force 6, leading to a nasty wind-over-tide sea in the Solent. The cold olive green sea and dark grey sky was a very nasty shock, compared to what we had left behind two weeks before. Following the advice in the pilot book, we decided to avoid the Needles Channel in these conditions and went into Yarmouth, on the Isle of Wight, for the night. As we entered the harbour, we had a very pleasant surprise. We found an Old Gaffers Festival in full swing, with live music in the streets throughout the town. England had just beaten Argentina in the World Cup, so there was a serious party atmosphere. We got the Eberspaker heater going, for the first time in over a year, and remembered that Sulmar is a very cosy comfortable boat even when it is freezing cold outside (15 degrees compared to 32 degrees + of the BVI). We had 10 days before we had to be in Edinburgh, plenty of time to get home - or so we thought!

The following day, we sailed to Weymouth in much calmer conditions. We ended up spending three nights in Weymouth Marina, hiding from gales in the channel. The marina in Weymouth is extremely well protected, so it was hard to believe the conditions in the channel (Force 8 and 9) described by the weather forecast. We got several tubs of rust remover from the local chandler and began the task of restoring Sulmar's topsides back to white. Weymouth is a typical English seaside resort and we found lots to do in and around the town, from long walks along the blustery promenade (with obligatory ice cream), rumaging through an antiques fair and a vintage car rally.

We left Weymouth on June 11th, with plans to sail to Dartmouth. We met huge confused seas going round Portland Bill and then settled down to a slow slog down the channel. The highlight of the day was a radio broadcast from the warship HMS Somerset, announcing that they were about to commence live firing in an area that we happened to be bang in the middle of! We called them up on VHF and established that we were not going to be blown out the water and were safe to proceed on our planned course.Our progress was so slow that we would have arrived in Dartmouth at 4am the following morning, so we continued on to Falmouth. The following morning we heard that we had been sucessful in buying a house that we had put an offer on before we left. Thank goodness for good mobile phone reception along the south coast. We arrived in Falmouth knowing that we didn't have time to get Sulmar home. We left her in Premier Marina in Falmouth and drove back to Scotland. We had already planned to travel south to Gillian's cousin Jan's wedding two weeks later. After another two busy weeks, we went to Lavenham in Suffolk to Jan and Chris's wedding and then to collect Sulmar. Lavenham is a lovely 16th century village with wooden houses that look as if they are about to fall down.

We got to Falmouth on the Sunday evening with intentions to leave on the Monday morning. We were horrified to find that Sulmar had been hit hard on the transom while we had been away. We were berthed opposite the fuel berth which was manned most of the day, but needless to say, no-one had seen anything. The noise of the collision must have been loud as the impact had broken our outboard engine in two, damaged the horseshoe buoy and broken the Navtex ariel mounting. Luckily our trusty 25 year old engine seemed to have taken most of the impact and other than a few scratches, the hull was undamaged.

Once again our plans to leave were thwarted due to gales in Sole, Portland, Fastnet and Lundy. We ended up leaving in the early hours of Thursday morning. We knew by Wednesday that we couldn't get Sulmar back home in time to sign the papers for our new house. We decided to get as far as Dublin, from which we would only be two days sail from our home port of Troon. Another deciding factor is that Dun Laoghaire marina on the south side of Dublin Bay is half the price of Falmouth Marina.

We arranged flights home from Dublin and set off from Falmouth with 4 days to get to Dun Laoghaire. As we sailed round Lands End the wind picked up from a force 5 to force 7 from the SouthWest, and with this brisk breeze on the stern quarter we were on a very fast roller coaster. We were welcomed into the Irish Sea by a huge school of about 40 dolphins. We were surfing along at 7 knots and with huge seas similar to those we had experienced when crossing the Atlantic. These dolphins seemed to want to share the fun of surfing on these waves with someone and they stayed with us for more than five hours. We have seen many dolphins in the last year, some very rare, but the magic never dies. These dolphins brought us just as much joy as ever.

Sadly the wind veered to Westerly and then NorthWesterly and after our sprint up through the first part of the Irish Sea, we were back to a slow wet beat for the rest of the passage to Dublin. We arrived in Dun Laoghaire on Saturday afternoon, to be told by Brian that we were just in time for some Guiness at the hospitality tent of a local regatta. After a couple of drinks and a great chinese meal, we felt revived. We spent Sunday with Brian and flew home on Monday morning just in time to organise the paperwork for our house. We left Sulmar for a month in Dun Loaghaire while we moved and redecorated Gillian's flat for renting.

We returned in early August to sail the home leg. Brian Kinsella and Tom O'Brien joined us for the weekend sail. It is a great pity that the weather refused to be of any assistance and gave us wind on the nose for most of the way, with short sharp seas and cold rain. It was, however, a very emotional trip for us. As we rounded the Mull of Galloway and spotted Ailsa Craig (better known as Paddy's Milestone) in the Firth of Clyde, Robin and I realised how much we had achieved in the past year. We have had fantastic experiences, seen amazing places, met wonderful people and most importantly come back safely. We have complete faith in Sulmar, who has proved to be extremely seaworthy in all that the elements have thrown at her. We arrived in Troon Marina early Sunday morning to a great welcome from the staff who wanted to know all about our trip.

We are now settling back into life on land in our new house. Robin is back at the helm of his business and Gillian is looking for a new job. We also have an addition to the family - a Golden Retriever called Finnan. For you dog-lovers out there, click here for Finnan's photo gallery.