Wind at last

Ok pub lunch with good beer at the Ship Inn, Holy Isle. Excellent ice cream. A bit of wind over tide leaving the harbour but then no wind again heading north. Then suddenly there was a nice breeze off the land. I looked up - storm clouds. Line squall, I thought. Is raising the main for a squall wise? Do I want to? hell yes! First bit of decent wind since Lowestoft. Discretion made me raise it with a reef. It dropped after a bit and we let out the reef. We hit 6 knots now and then. The wind strengthened and we put the reef back in.

By the time we got to Eyemouth we had the main reefed down so much we had to untie the bottom mast hoop and had run out of travel on the roller reefing line. The jib was away and we were fine reaching on main and staysail. Still hitting 6 knots now and then. A huge Dutch catamaran came into Eyemouth behind us. "It was quite windy" said the skipper. I asked if he knew how windy. "Touching 30 knots".