Tag Archives: Dartmouth

Only in England

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It’s pouring with rain. I’m wearing shorts and craddling a bottle of prosecco as if my life depended on it. Up ahead steam is curling into a grey sky and weaving its way through the thick branches lining the track. A sharp whistle and sure enough the train is in sight… where am I?

Only in England can you expect to shelter at a level crossing with a backpacker and discuss “summer holidays in the UK”. A few hours earlier we’d been watching a family of dolphins playing around our boat in glorious sunshine. Now we were absolutely soaked on terra firma waiting for a steam train in the rain!

England is full of surprises and for the past week, the south coast of Devon has been delivering a kaleidoscope of holiday experiences, that could only happen in the UK.

We’ve been under sail for a week on what I like to call The Diva. She is new to us this summer and has already delivered some fun days shared with friends and family. We’ve been thinking about buying a boat for some time, years in fact, now we actually own one – well a bit of one – 18 per cent to be exact! But when we get to sail her, she’s all ours – all 35 feet of her!

Our kaleidoscope week started with a few hours sail from Dartmouth to Salcombe. After hurriedly stowing the food and kit, we managed to catch the tide and get on our way. Salcombe welcomed us with sunshine and the next day there was a chance to stroll on the beach, swim in the icy clear water and even walk a bit of the stunning South Coast path.

We decided to stay for the Salcombe Regatta fireworks on Thursday night, only to find they’d been postponed due to the weather. We’d woken to mist and rain and a day of bouncing in waves that were being whipped up even in the relative shelter of the estuary. The mist hung around the next morning, making warnings of a heatwave across the UK very hard to believe. We could barely see the boat a few metres away on a neighbouring buoy.

The next night we hoped the splendid fireworks would signal a change in the weather. And it did, gradually. The sun eventually broke through on Monday and we enjoyed some exhilarating sailing with friends and a lunch of Salcombe pasties in one of Devon’s rocky bays. That morning we’d woken up to watch a seal eating his breakfast beside the boat, munching on a huge fish held between his flippers!

Fast forward 24 hours and we were back in Dartmouth. We’d sailed in alongside a family of dolphins after an early morning sail.

We managed to find a quiet place up the river Dart to enjoy lunch with a hint of sunshine. But back at the marina the sky was turning grey and we decided to try out our legs on a walk along the river Dart towards Kingswear. The idea was to see if we could find something to toast the end of our trip. The clouds looked threatening as we headed along the narrow path beside the railway track.

After capturing some steam train footage and soaking up the smell of coal and oil and engines on the platform, we managed to find a decent looking bottle of Prosecco in a corner shop. 

The rain had now started in earnest with no let-up in sight, and I wondered if it would be more pleasant to catch a ferry back to the boat, but it seemed we “needed” the exercise, even if it meant getting drenched. So, I found myself standing in the rain, while a huge green train puffed towards me. I wondered whether to put down the bottle and take a photo or just smile and wave at the driver.

If you’re looking to experience four seasons in one day, Dartmouth is the place to go! It also offers rides on steam trains, ferries and even paddle steamers. And of course there are plenty of boats of all shapes, sizes and ages everywhere you look.

Miraculously the Prosecco made it back in one piece and was enjoyed later that night. Thank you Dartmouth and South Devon for a ‘pick ‘n’ mix’ week of weather, but no shortage of excitement and variety. 

I hate seagulls

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I hate seagulls. No, I really hate them. Even more so because I’ve realised they’re just like the coronavirus. You’re walking along in the sunshine enjoying life when all of a sudden you get knocked for six and seconds later you realise you’ve been robbed!

Seagulls have mugged me twice in the last year and almost in the same spot.

The first time I was tucking into a very tasty Cornish (West Country – because it was in Devon) pasty on a bench looking out to sea. Out of the blue something hit me on the head and a large chunk of pasty was being whisked into the air. Yuk! Ouch! I tried covering the rest of it over with my hand as I munched, and then another swooped in for a bite. I retreated to a shelter to finish eating, but I’d lost my appetite and the pasty didn’t taste right after being pecked at by the flying bandits. They’d spoilt the treat entirely and I also felt a little traumatised. 

Yesterday I hadn’t given the gulls a thought, but they must have recognised me. I was enjoying a double ice cream – mint choc chip and Turkish delight – odd combination but I couldn’t decide what to have. As we walked in search of a suitable bench I was relishing my first few licks, anticipating the rest, when suddenly, whack! Something hit me on the head and when I looked down the two balls of ice cream were splattered on the pavement while a seagull pecked at them. I didn’t even know they liked ice cream. They’d struck again… all that was left was a dry empty cone with a trickle of mint ice cream smeared down one side.

Coronavirus has felt a bit like that seagull attack. Much anticipated joyful moments for our family have been thrown into disarray, and special things we were looking forward to have effectively been stolen away, knocked out of our hands. The arrival of our first grandchild was a delight, but couldn’t be celebrated or enjoyed in the way we’d hoped. Our son’s wedding has had to be postponed, with all the emotional trauma, disappointment and uncertainty that involves. And the many precious family times around both these events have also been hijacked.

It’s been hard to put into words how I’ve felt these past few months, but the seagull ambush made me realise that most of us have been robbed by the coronavirus. For me it has been the loss of precious moments with family, for many thousands it will have been far worse as they mourn the death of loved ones, for others lost jobs and for some isolation and spiralling mental health issues.

Now as we try to ease out of lockdown,  it isn’t like turning back the clock. Everything has changed, even walking into a shop is not an enjoyable experience anymore. We’re awkward, anxious to do the right thing, worried about touching and moving around in smaller spaces. We know the seagulls of coronavirus are hovering above waiting to swoop, so it’s hard to relax.

Staring at the seagull pecking at my ice cream was a reminder that it’s easy to let precious things slip through your hands. I want to hold onto the moments I have with my family and treasure times together even in the midst of this uncertainty. We can’t let the seagulls win – the virus has been sucking our joy away, replacing it with fear and anxiety. 

But we need to keep eating ice creams while taking sensible precautions. Next time I visit Dartmouth I will take my umbrella – I think that should do the trick! 

I wish there were such simple solutions for coronavirus.

All at sea

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Have you ever been in one of those crisis moments when you say to yourself, we’ll look back on this tomorrow and think, ‘what a great adventure that was…’?

That was 24 hours ago…*

“I’ll just do it then, shall I?” It was one of those questions I didn’t need to ask, because there weren’t any other options left.
“Boom!”
Another huge waved crashed across the bows of the boat which were immediately rising to the crest of a second wave. I had butterflies in my stomach as I turned to inch my way along the deck, the lines of my safety harness scraping along the tape secured to the boat.
‘Be brave’ was the only thing I could think.
Half way along the deck I sat down gripping the metal stays with one hand as I unfastened and refastened the clip to the next set of tapes. My body was tense and my fingers trembled, mainly with cold. Up ahead at the bows the next wave was pounding down showering me with spray and I kept low edging my way towards the ‘pointy end’…

It had already been quite a day at sea. We’d set off, just the two of us, at 6am to catch the tidal stream. Daybreak sails are some of my favourite. As the sky begins to lighten and sun’s rays are soft and golden, full of unspoken promises of what lies ahead. The wind had been a bit stronger than forecast and we’d made good progress hoping to push through to Dartmouth – our final destination. But after a change in wind direction and with the tide turned against us, we decided to divert to Salcombe till later in the afternoon when the tides would be in our favour.

Always expect the unexpected in sailing. As we attempted to furl the genoa (pull in the sail at the front which wraps around a wire) the rope snapped. It wasn’t an easy fix, so sadly, we found ourselves returning to where we’d come from – more than three hours sail west. Four hours later, furling line temporarily fixed with a bit of help, we headed back to sea. We’d made reasonable time and decided to try and make Dartmouth that evening. The voyage took us through the notorious Start Point where the sea can be quite rough. Neither of us had sailed there before. We’d got into big waves about an hour earlier, but now they were getting higher and there were white horse breaking all around us.

We were more than two or three miles off shore, as we began to round the light house, and watched the blue curve of Start Bay emerge in the distance. 

“I don’t think we can make it…we’re going to have to turn back.”
It was one of those moments. You could call it mutiny.
Waves were breaking across the front of the boat. The sun would be setting in an hour. The wind was coming from where we needed to go. We’d been sailing pretty much non stop for more than 12 hours. But there was one other option… to me this was better than going back again.

This involved one of us going to the front of the pitching boat to fix the tangled line and help wind in the sail by hand. Meanwhile, the other steered the boat through the waves while juggling two other ropes to enable the awkward sail to be safely pulled in. We’d planned to be in calmer waters for this procedure, but we couldn’t risk the furling line breaking again.

So, there I was, kneeling at the front of the boat on the biggest and scariest white water roller coaster ride ever. In between each fresh wave, which broke across me, I attempted to untangle the rope, while the stressed skipper shouted instructions above the waves. Apart from being scared of slipping in, the biggest problem was my bobble hat which insisted on sliding down over my eyes. I thought the rope was untangled and then saw it wasn’t. As I gripped the metal stanchion to steady myself while the boat slammed down onto yet another wave, I did think, ‘Hopefully, we’ll be laughing about all this tomorrow.’

The best thing about moments like that may not be the moments themselves, but it’s the contrast of looking back and being glad you got through it.

An hour or so later as our little boat nudged its way between the rocks and the castle guarding the entrance to Dartmouth, the sun was beginning to sink behind the hills. A mooring buoy was beckoning and the boom of a canon up above at the Naval College signalled that the day was over. 

We both sighed and smiled. What a day it had been! Some 88 nautical miles travelled since first light. Now the dangers were past, we were in calm waters and a safe harbour for the night. There is no better feeling. And it’s one of the many reasons why I love sailing.

*at the time of writing