Portland Bill

We arrived in Dartmouth mid afternoon and managed to secure one of the best berths in town! Dartmouth has a large town quay from which the regular ferries to Kingswear on the other side of the river depart. The Quay is also used by numerous pleasure boats taking folks on trips up the river to Totnes and out into the bay. However inside the quay are about 10 deep water moorings between the quay and the harbour wall. These are provided with an electric hook up and fresh water and a direct walkway into the middle of the town! The only downside is that you are on view to every tourist boarding a pleasure boat - but it is a small price to pay!

Teteli moored to the Town Quay

While in Dartmouth we received the sad news that a friend of ours had died and the date of his funeral. We knew that, as last Summer, we needed to return home for a while to catch up with our "shore life" so we began to think about places to leave Teteli for a few weeks so that we could get home in time to say good-bye to him and sort out all the other mundane things that don't stop while we are away. We also had a look at the longer range forecast and saw ominous signs of a storm brewing in the Atlantic - this later turned out to be storm Hector - so we made the decision to return home the following week and after a few phone calls secured a berth for Teteli in Weymouth Marina. The only challenge in this plan was getting to Weymouth as this meant rounding Portland Bill.

Portland Bill is a narrow strip of headland poking out into the English Channel  on the Dorset coastline. It is also the point where two very strong tidal currents meet and as a result a "race" forms which is basically an area of fast flowing confused dangerous water where if you are trapped in it there is very little you can do other than hang on and hope! To add insult to injury the race moves around depending on the state of the tide and the prevailing wind and weather conditions! The Pilot books are full of complex tidal stream diagrams and dire warnings about the dangers of this stretch of water. There is plenty of advise available to the intrepid mariner from the adventurous - "pass very close to the shore through a passage about 400m wide where the water should generally be calm" (how close is very close and 400m doesn't sound that wide to me!) to the very risk adverse - "a course about 7-8 miles off the Bill should see you outside of all of the dangerous tidal streams".  We chose a course taking us about 4 miles offshore which although would be a bit bumpy would not put us close to the race. Having worked this out we realised that we now had a couple of free days in Dartmouth so we joined the tourists on the Dart Valley Steam Railway into Paignton and spent a happy couple of days chilling in the Devon sunshine!

One of the Dart Valley Steam Trains

Saturday morning dawned slightly misty and the weather forecast was for generally overcast weather until late afternoon with moderate visibility, the wind however was still stuck in the north east! We couldn't afford to wait for the wind to come around to the promised south westerly so resigned ourselves to the fact that the motor would again put in an appearance. This particular leg of our journey was probably one of the most boring we had ever done - once we had passed the headland leading out of Dartmouth we struck out across Lyme Bay and although we maintained a steady course the land curved away from us into the bay so after a couple of hours we couldn't see anything other than a slightly misty horizon. Eventually a couple of trawlers appeared and we had something different to look at as we crossed their path - other than that it was us the sea and Radio 2 (the only station that we could pick up!). Eventually after about 7 hours the shape of the Bill appeared from the mist - and yes it does look like a large wedge of cheese as described in the pilot books! As we closed on the Bill another couple of yachts appeared from seaward apparently aiming to pass the Bill a little further off than us. As we got closer the sea did become more lumpy and uncomfortable but we were fortunate that the weather was calm and we had soon rounded the point and were shaping a course to avoid the Shambles Bank and close on Weymouth Harbour. We motored between the piers into Weymouth at about 5:15pm and had to tie up to await the 6pm bridge opening which would allow us into the Marina. The bridge waiting pontoon is in the middle of the town so we sat looking at the daytrippers eating their fish and chips - looking at us as we tidied the boat and awarded ourselves a cold beer!

An hour or so later we were safely tied up in Weymouth Marina where Teteli will spend the next few weeks while we return to "normal" life on shore. Next stop on our voyage will be Poole as long as we survive the Lulworth Military Firing Range!!