And following up my last post, here’s what we’ve been thinking about for next year’s cruise: a third round-the-British-Isles voyage, at an even more leisurely pace than before, giving time to explore places we missed and revisit some of the most memorable.
Part of the attraction is that England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland take on a different character when toured by sea. We’ve been reminded of that by re-reading Jonathan Raban’s Coasting from 40 years ago, in which he seemed to discover an entirely new country by touring Britain in a small boat.
We’ve actually toyed in recent years with ideas about going south to the Mediterranean (which then got annoyingly complicated with Brexit and VAT) or east to the Baltic. But the allure of the 2,000 or so miles round Britain and Ireland (depending how closely you follow the coastline) is that it includes some of the most beautiful cruising areas in Western Europe, especially in the North and West, and there are also a large number of easy to reach places where the boat can be left. It’s then simple to catch a train or a bus home at short notice, which makes planning easier and less rigid.
It’s a way of cruising described in many older sailing memoirs. If a contrary wind made progress too hard, then skipper and crew went home for a while. With tiny engines and sometimes none at all, they couldn’t pound stubbornly to windward under sail and power as we often do nowadays: they would instead hand the keys to a local boatman and head for the nearest railway station, returning in better weather.
The obvious disadvantage of the British Isles against going south is of course the variable weather and low temperature. But with flexibility of timings and transport rather than fixed dates for flights to and from other sailing destinations in Europe (unless you pay a fortune for last minute tickets) you can raise the chance of sailing in good weather. Even Scotland has the occasional heatwave!
Our first Round Britain cruise was in 2007-8 in my 30 foot Verl, Pepper, from Harwich via Ireland to Kerrera, an island close to Oban, where we wintered. The second year we went back to Harwich via the Orkneys and east coast. Our 2012-13 cruise in the jointly owned Spring Fever started from Cowes, went up the east coast and through the Caledonian Canal, wintering at Ardoran, just south of Oban. The second year we wandered back to Cowes via the west of Ireland.
We now have a few winter months to work out next year’s route.
PS I got that lovely jacket I wanted for my birthday.
tide by tide 