Last Thursday we motored from Topsham to Exmouth in a dead calm. The hardest parts were the start and finish - as expected. First we had to almost dig ourselves out of the mud and eventually had to back out past Peter's very nice 55 foot ketch, a beautiful old girl with probably a few stories to tell. Anyway, his tender got bounced out of the way but his yacht survived.
Travelling down the Exe is like a complicated dot to dot writ large on the water, hopping from one bouy to the other, and trying not to snigger when you check off the one called "nob". We didn't snigger, not through maturity but stress, this being our first time out unsupervised in this huge bus of a boat.
The entrance to the Exe deserves planning and respect - which I gave in spades, having been worrying about this since the moment I came in. You exit close enough to the beach to shout a hearty "good morning" to a dog walker, which I did. It was not horologic-ally correct by 6 minutes, but never mind. Once past the beach you turn South-ish and keep going until you reach Torbay.
Torquay town harbour is a nice place to go, Harbour master was helpful and the pontoon is easy to hit just as you go in. Shame that's what we did, but we confessed to our sins and I had a message from the harbour master the next day on my phone to say we were not going to be charged for our crass vandalism as they could just bend the post back again!
Unfortunately we had to be up early next day for reasonable weather to cross Lyme Bay and round Portland Bill in safety so Torquay didn't get the attention it deserved.
Topsham to Torquay Album on Facebook
Leaving Torquay was a quieter affair than Topsham, and rather more straightforward. You head straight out of the harbour, keeping to starboard of course, until well clear of the harbour walls then head off from there. We took a left and headed west across Lyme Bay towards Portland Bill, and then around to the marina there. I selected Portland Marina based on the fact that we sailed from Weymouth previously and I was aware that (1) in Weymouth we would most likely be rafting, probably alongside smaller yachts than ourselves and (2) there was a strong possibility of a night-time approach, and I didn't fancy either possibility coming in after a long day and in light of the fact that we bashed Torquay on the way in.
Another decision you have to make on this passage is which way to get past Portland Bill, which is a nasty little bugger of a place with a well deserved reputation for it's nasty tidal races, overfalls, eddies and general bumpiness. I decided on the offshore route - in which you go further out, avoiding the worst of the nastiness.
In the event we had a short but significant sea coming in from the South West, hitting us from the starboard quarter and regularly slamming.
Slamming is when a larger wave in the series hits the bottom of the central bridge deck - the bit that is normally above the water - this causes the whole boat to shake and carried on intermittently for the best (or worst...) part of eight hours. The first time this happened it was terrifying but subsequently it settled down to merely scary and eventually tedious and wearing.
As we approached Portland we managed to phone the National Coastwatch point there and had a reassuring chat with the volunteers regarding our intentions and the state of the race. As the weather was not bad, the tides were on neaps, our timing was good and we were well offshore then we were apparently having a good day. I can only say that I'm glad we didn't choose a bad day. After a hour or more of being bounced around like a 4 year old on a sugar rush let loose on the trampoline we phoned again and were informed that we were doing great. This is true - we now knew what we hadn't secured properly and how well this boat of ours would look after us - we now only had another couple of miles to go and we could turn in.
If you hadn't heard about the National Coastwatch Institution should visit their website and specifically the Portland Bill website, if you use the sea at all for any reason or know someone who does then please make a donation if you can. More about the Coastwatch people at another time.
When we turned at the shambles east cardinal buoy we started going with the waves for a bit, which meant a bit of surfing - finally a bit of fun, and this relatively calm bit was when Richard was sick - he'd put up with everything else up till then, even when Andrew was sick in front of him. They were the only two casualties of the day barring George who constantly fell over due to his insistence on wandering around without holding onto anything.
As we made our way in it became obvious that we would indeed be navigating Portland Harbour in the dark, we phoned the marina office to make sure where we were going and wandered in. Portland Harbour is the second largest man-made harbour in the world so it takes quite some time to work your way in. This was only complicated when the red flashing light on the marina entrance started flashing rather more than it should, then took off! We can only be grateful that the coastguard helicopter was not taking off for us I suppose.
We did not bash anything and moored up quite well in the dark after an eleven and a half hour adventure - shaken, but not stirred. A search for fish and chips resulted in a Chinese takeaway and bed for everyone before midnight - just.
From the Shell Channel Pilot sixth edition, compiled by Tom Cunliffe:
Portland Race is the most dangerous extended area of broken water in the English Channel. Quite substantial vessels drawn into it have been known to disappear without trace... In bad weather there is confused and dangerous water as far as the eastern end of the Shambles.
This passage was not taken lightly, or without careful planning.
Lyme Bay Album on Facebook
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