Portpatrick to Port St.Mary

We woke up to another lovely day and after climbing the north face of the Eiger to drop the rubbish off we set cast off and motored out of the harbour.

Our destination for the day was Port St.Mary at the South East tip of the Isle of Man, a distance of about 60Nm. As you sail down the cost of Dumfries & Galloway you can just see the mountains of the Isle of Man ahead and on the starboard you can see the mountains of N. Ireland. We had a beautiful clear day with superb visibility.

As you can see it was so relaxing, we sailed pretty much all the way averaging 4.5knts. The idea was to pass through Calf Sound which separates the Calf of Man from the mainland then turn to port rounding Spanish Head and then into Port St.Mary. Eventhough this was quite early in the year Pete and I were really surprised by how few pleasure craft there was about, there was of course the obligatory ferries etc. but not a single sail bar ours, what a shame as the weather was nigh on perfect.

Calf Sound is rather tight even at high water and I certainly would've gone round if the the wind speed was any higher. They've just built a new visitor overlooking the Sound so we had a decent audience to wave us through. The rocks were festooned with large lazy seals basking in the afternoon sunshine and they paid us little regard as we slipped through.

Port St.Mary is a beautiful spot and we picked up the first visitors mooring we came across. Now this was a mistake of a magnitude Pete and I would only fully appreciate much later that night.

We blow up the dinghy and Pete rowed us ashore, the town is very pretty but appeared to be closed!!!! We ambled up the high street but every pub was shut!

Back down at the port Pete rowed me back to the boat and I put on dinner whilst he had a play in the dinghy.... don't you like the way his top matches the dinghy? so you Pete!!

Anyway back to that mooring buoy.... we chose the first one we came across without really thinking about it... a sure sign of inexperience and one neither of us will make again. All started off find and then the wind backed to a southerly the tide ebbed and the boat stated to rock and roll then rocked and rolled some more and more .... this went on all night and combine this with the fact that we kept banging into the buoy and we both agreed that this was one of the worst nights sleep we ever had.

Tomorrows another day..........................