Sailing: Month 1

I’m writing a lot of content over on sailinghannahpenn.co.uk, and I want to share some of that here, linking to most of the posts and adding a little more.

We actually wrote most of the initial blog posts in Month 1, as we had already set off before creating the blog. I’m looking forward to being able to look back on the blog in the future.

I tried writing a diary while driving my old van through Europe, but I stopped halfway through. These blogs feel like something I can continue.

Month 1 covers the initial splash of the boat after having lots of work down, all the way through to the day before the Biscay crossing (day 1 to day 31)

The first 30 days included 16 days of sailing:

• Day 1: The River Dart (splash)
• Day 3: Dartmouth to Salcombe
• Day 5: Salcombe to Plymouth
• Day 6: Plymouth to Saltash
• Day 8: Saltash to Falmouth
• Day 16: Falmouth to Helford River
• Day 17: Helford River to Housel Cove
• Day 18: Housel Cove to St Michael’s Mount
• Day 19: St Michael’s Mount to Penzance
• Day 20: Penzance to the Isles of Scilly
• Day 21: Eastern Isles to St Helens pool
• Day 23: St Helens Pool to St Marys
• Day 24: Anchor dragging into Hannah
• Day 24-25: Crossing the channel to Brest, France
• Day 30: Brest to Crozon

Looking back at this month, lots of the first weeks included a hangover of “getting the boat ready”. It would have been nice to have more things stowed away and figured out, and possibly some more boat jobs done before setting off. But we were already behind schedule. The moral of the story here would be to take the boat out of the water a little earlier to get more work done on it!

If I could change one thing from the first month of sailing it would be to spend more time in the Isles of Scilly. It really is a beautiful place and I feel that we only got to explore a few areas of a few islands. Even though we were not there for long I did manage to get this awesome (in my opinion) picture.

If there was one thing that I wish I had managed to film somehow it would have been the day another boat dragged anchor into us. It certainly was an adrenaline-filled morning.

The ocean really is a beautiful place.

I have grown up around the sea and know it has its ugly side too, and I’m sure we will see some of that in the coming months too.

Until next time…