just come back from a week sailing as crew on a mate's boat. the trip was from tollesbury in essex to inverness in scotland - up the east coast.
i couldn't start the trip with them, so joined them at lunchtime on monday last in scarborough. overall, it was an uneventful trip - that is, it went very smoothly.
my first night on board was a bit rough, especially as i was off-watch between 2000-0000. it was a job to stay in the bunk sometimes, and i could feel my innards rolling around as the boat fell off some swells and was tossed and rolled regularly. then, when i came back on watch at 0000 the sea calmed down - typical! but i wasn't sea-sick (thankfully, its not something i've suffered from, though there were defintiely times i had to stop reading or looking at the chart and get up on deck).
as it was a passage- making trip (time-limited to making the end of the trip a necessary thing by end of friday) as opposed to a pleasure cruise with no real timing issues, we had to have the engine on most of the time to keep an average speed of 5 knots. there just wasn't enough wind to sail for most of the time, although we did have enough for a little bit of the time that allowed the sails to go up and peace to descend on the boat.
on the way we sailed through fog, saw birdlife of gannets and puffins mostly, a big dolphin, and several pods of porpoise.
i love being offshore and out of sight of land. i can't recall how many times i found myself saying, "i LOVE this sailing lark!" its the kind of thing that brings me alive. even though the watch system was 4hrs on and 4hrs off, its a rhythm that i quickly get used to.
once we left scarborough, we only made land again twice: at edinburgh, and then inverness. we called into edinburgh because after that, there is very little protection and nowhere to go in case it gets very ugly at sea, and the forecast at that time was not looking too good. so the skipper and owner, andy challis, decided to take no risks, and we had a night in the marina - and a shower! the forecast ugliness didn't come through though, and next day we headed for inverness.
the trip ended in the caledonian canal on friday afternoon, and i stayed on board until very early monday morning when i got the train back to london.
the photos are: the bridges into edinburgh, the sunset coming into inverness, the boat in the marina, and peace at sea. i'll upload the rest onto flickr soon, so check the sidebar from time to time.
you can see some more photos of another trip the boat did here.
