The start of a plan

The season is getting close so we made a tentative plan for the year.

towards the end of April we'll head down to Padstow for the 'Obby 'Oss festival and leave Robinetta there and come back for the Tollesbury Rally.

Then, at the end of May we'll try and head down to the Scillies and over to Ushant and Cameret. We think we might be able to leave the boat at La Foret but we haven't spoken with them yet.

If that works we'll carry on after Swamazons and explore southern Brittany a bit before heading to Dournenez or thereabouts to leave the boat until the festival there in July.

After the festival we'll head round the coast to the Ile de Brehat and then over to the Channel Isles and Weymouth, looking in at Castle Bay where Robinetta was moored in the late 1940s and then on to Cowes for the OGA55.



After Cowes we don't have firm plans and we'll probably weekend-hop back to the East Coast. We'll have used an awful lot of holiday by then!

It's about 1,200 nm as drawn but it does include trips up the Medway, Thames and Blackwater which might not happen.

Ilfracombe

Drying Marina in a run-down area of town. Worth missing.

Bude

Amazing lock in the middle of the beach. Accessible with 2-3 days notice at high water. Good along-side moorings once inside canal.

Possible to come into the lock at high and tie up to the walls if arriving when unmanned.

Port Isaac

Drying sandy harbour.

Padstow

Locked in marina. Not as busy as the web-site threatens. Doesn't take bookings but unlikely to be a problem in May. Friendly Harbour Master. Doom Bar challenging in quite calm conditions. Entrance well buoyed. Yellow buoys are not visitors moorings! Enter and leave near high water but should be OK to get in and out of the estuary above half-tide in calm conditions.

Boscastle

Tiny. Good for popping in for an ice cream. Not an overnight stop. Dangerous in bad weather.

We had amazing and unusual weather conditions when we visited, and I ended up taking a lot of pictures.

Appledore

Nowhere to go in. Possible to tie up against the wall and dry-out. Wall a bit rough.